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ALICE’S ADVENTURES 
IN WONDERLAND 

BY 

LEWIS CARROLL 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN TENNIEL 


EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

CHARLES A. McMURRY 


Neiit gork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1905 


All rights reserved 


juiKARY of OONG^tSS 
I Two Copies rtixdiveci 

' f£e 16 iyo5 

, 5opyriii:ni tuiry . 

\CU^S$ ^ XAC. Moi 

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^ COPY a./ I 



COPTEIQHT, 1905, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1905, 


L PREFACE TO THE 

EIGHTY-SIXTH THOUSAND 

; Inquiries have been so often addressed to me, 
as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddle 
^ (see p. 88) can be imagined, that I may as well 
put on record here what seems to me to be a 
fairly appropriate answer, viz., “Because it can 
produce a few notes, though they are very flat,^ 
and it is never put with the wrong end in front ! ” 
This, however, is merely an after-thought: the 
Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer 
at all. 

Christmas, 1896. 


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CHARLES LUTWIDGE HODGSON 


The author of Alice in Wonderland was the 
son of an English clergyman, and was born in 
Daresbury, England, in 1832. His name was 
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, but he is better 
known as “ Lewis Carroll,” a name taken .many 
years later when he became an author. 

The parish of Daresbury was an isolated one, 
and Charles for eleven years had no one to play 
with except the small brothers and sisters that 
followed him. As he was the eldest of a family 
of eleven children he did not lack for society, 
but being dependent upon each other, these chil- 
dren naturally developed many novel means of 
entertainment. 

Charles was much interested in the animal life 
of the neighborhood, and made pets of all sorts 
of queer creatures, as toads, worms, etc. 

vii 


viii CHABLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 

When Charles was eleven years old his father 
moved to the Parish of Croft. This was a well- 
populated place with interesting buildings and 
people. A new life opened for the children, but 
they retained much of their early independence 
in the way of amusement. In the garden at 
Croft, Charles built a railway station, and with 
the aid of a wheelbarrow, a barrel, and a truck 
constructed a railway train that ran to the other 
end of the garden and back. No one was allowed 
to rid^ upon this train without a ticket bought 
of the builder, but it was often in use. At this 
time Charles greatly enjoyed writing plays and 
constructing puppets regulated by strings to act 
them. 

The father gave much time to the education of 
his children, and was aided by the mother, who 
was a very able woman. Charles made rapid 
advance in his studies, being especially interested 
in mathematics. When he was twelve years old 
he was sent to a school at Richmond. Here with 
other small boys he was roughly handled by the 
older boys. In his later years he spoke often of 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 


IX 


the discomforts he had endured, especially of his 
suffering with cold on winter nights when the 
older boys would take all the bed covering from 
the little ones. In a letter from Richmond writ- 
ten to his sister he tells of several disagreeable 
tricks played by the older boys, all of which he 
took with considerable good nature. That he 
was much like many > other boys of his age is 
shown by the closing paragraph of this letter : 
“ I have had three misfortunes in my clothes, etc. 
First, I cannot find my tooth-brush, so that I have 
not brushed my teeth for three or four days. 
Second, I cannot find my blotting-paper, and, 
third, I have no shoe-horn. The chief games are 
foot-ball, wrestling, leap-frog, and fighting.” ^ 

The year after entering school Charles wrote a 
story for the school magazine. It bore the mys- 
terious title, “The Unknown One.” 

When Charles left Richmond his master wrote 
to his father, 2 “ Be assured that I shall always feel 

1 Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll^ S. D. Collingwood. 
The Century Co. Ibid. 


X 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 


a peculiar interest in the gentle, intelligent, and 
well-conducted boy who is now leaving us.” 

From Richmond the boy was sent to Rugby, 
where he did good work. While he was an active 
boy, he did not excel in athletics. During his 
holidays he amused his brothers and sisters by 
publishing local magazines. The first of these 
was Useful and Instructive Poetry, This was 
short-lived, but others followed. When he was 
about seventeen years old the most popular of 
these journals. The Rectory Umbrella^ appeared. 
It contained a serial story, called “The Walking 
Stick of Destiny,” some poetry, essays, and some 
amusing caricatures of some famous pictures. 
The editor was ambitious to be an artist as well 
as a writer. One issue of this popular magazine 
contained a parody on the style of Macaulay in 
the Lays of Ancient Rome. It told of some trivial 
household event, and was much appreciated by 
his young readers. That he retained his fond- 
ness for parodies through life is shown in his 
most popular books for children. 

In 1850, at the age of eighteen, Charles entered 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE HODGSON 


XI 


Christ Church College, Oxford, where his father 
had studied and was well acquainted. Here he 
did excellent work and took several honors, being 
first in mathematics. He early looked forward 
to a literary life, and was anxious to become inde- 
pendent financially in order to follow his chosen 
work. In 1853, partly to add to his slender 
income, he became a contributor to the Oomic 
Times^ a humorous paper of some note. He also 
wrote for the college papers, being at one time 
editor of College Rhymes^ a Christ Church paper. 

After a time the Comic Times changed hands, 
and a new paper called The Train was begun. 
While writing for this the editor suggested that 
a nom de plume^ or pen name, be selected. Mr. 
Hodgson made out a list of several names, among 
them that of “Lewis Carroll.” This the editor 
preferred, and all of his books for children were 
written under this name. He liked to pretend 
that Lewis Carroll and Charles Lutwidge Hodg- 
son were different persons, and often took great 
care to conceal their identity. 

In 1861 Mr. Hodgson was ordained deacon in 


xii 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 


the Church of England. He did not take priest’s 
orders later, as he felt that he did not quite agree 
with some of the beliefs of the clergy. He was 
a talker of much power, because of his clearness, 
sincerity, and earnestness, but was often troubled 
with stammering. 

Because of his success in mathematics and his 
excellent work in general, he had been made Stu- 
dent and Mathematical Lecturer in Christ Church 
College. Though the income was not large, the 
position gave him much leisure for the work he 
loved, and he retained it all the rest of his life. 

Lewis Carroll was fond of children. Often he 
would be attracted by some child on the street, 
at the sea-side, or in travelling, would seek her 
acquaintance, send her books, flowers, and write 
her the most interesting and nonsensical of let- 
ters. One of his child-friends says : “ Our ac- 
quaintance began in a somewhat singular manner. 
We were playing on the Fort at Margate, and a 
gentleman on a seat near asked us if we could 
make a paper boat, with a seat in the middle for 
fish. We were, of course, enchanted with the 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON xiii 

idea, and our new friend, after achieving the feat, 
gave us his card, which we at once carried to our 
mother. He asked if he might call where we 
were staying, and then presented my elder sister 
with a copy of Alice in Wonderland^ inscribed, 
‘ From the Author.’ He kindly organized many 
little excursions for us, chiefly in the pursuit of 
knowledge. One memorable visit to a lighthouse 
is still fresh in our memories.” ^ 

One of his “ nonsense ” letters was written to a 
little girl named Adelaide : — 

“My dear Ada: (Isn’t that your short name? 
‘ Adelaide ’ is all very well, but you see when one 
is dreadfully busy one hasn’t time to write such 
long words, — particularly when it takes one half 
an hour to remember how to spell it, — and even 
then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if 
one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary 
is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase, 
where it has been for months and months, and 
has got all covered with dust, so one has to get 

1 Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll^ S. D. Collingwood. 
The Century Co. 


xiv CHARLES LUTWIDGE HODGSON 

a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in 
dusting it, and when one has made out at last 
which is dictionary and which is dust, even then 
there is the job of remembering which end of the 
alphabet ‘ A ’ comes, — for one feels pretty certain 
that it isn’t in the middle, — then one has to go 
and wash one’s hands before turning over the 
leaves, — for they have got so thick with dust 
one hardly knows them by sight, — and, as likely 
as not, the soap is lost, the jug is empty, and 
there’s no towel, and one has to spend hours and 
hours in finding things, — and perhaps after all 
one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake 
of soap, — so, with all this bother, I hope you 
won’t mind my writing it short and saying ‘ my 
dear Ada.’) You said in your last letter you 
would like a likeness of me ; so here it is, and I 
hope you will like it. I won’t forget to call the 
next time but one I’m in Wallington. Your very 
Affect, friend, 

“Lewis Carroll.” ^ 


1 Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll^ S. D. Collingwood. 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODOSON 


XV 


These friendships, except in a few cases, did 
not last beyond childhood. To one friend he 
writes : “x r.lways feel specially grateful to friends 
who, like you, have given me a child-friendship 
and a woman-friendship. About nine cases out 
of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get ship- 
wrecked at the critical point ‘where the stream 
and river meet,’ and the child-friends, once so 
affectionate, become uninteresting acquaintances, 
whom I have no wish to set eyes on again.” ^ 

In 1862, the year after Mr. Dodgson had taken 
orders in the Church of England, he went with 
the three little daughters of Dean Liddell, one of 
whom, Alice, was a great favorite of his, up the 
river for an afternoon’s outing. “ I made an ex- 
pedition up the river to Godston with the three 
Liddells. We had tea on the banks there and did 
not reach Christ Church until half-past eight. . . . 
On which occasion I told them the fairy tale of 
Alice’s Adventures Underground, which I under- 
took to write out for Alice.” The name of the 


1 Ihid. 


XVI 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 


story was changed later to Alice's Adventures in 
Wonderland. The story was not intended for 
publication, but one of the author’s friends per- 
suaded him to give it to the public. Messrs. 
Macmillan published the book and Sir John Ten- 
niel illustrated it. It at once became popular, 
and was soon translated into several languages. 
The humor appeals to both old and young, some 
of it being better appreciated by the old, thbugh 
children always like the story. 

Mr. Dodgson, or “Lewis Carroll,” has written 
other books for children, Alice through the Looking- 
Glass^ Sylvie and Bruno., and the Hunting of the 
Snark being the ones best knowm. It is said that 
Queen Victoria was much pleased with Aliceas 
Adventures in Wonderland^ and asked for Mr. 
Dodgson’s other works. The author sent her 
his Elementary Treatise on Determinants and other 
mathematical works. These books were not so 
much enjoyed by the good Queen. 

Charles Dudley Warner says of Lewis Carroll’s 
books for children, “A very slight glance at 
their matter and mechanism shows that they are 


CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 


XVll 


the work of one trained td use words with the 
finest precision, to teach others to use them so, 
to criticise keenly any inconsistency or slovenli- 
ness in their use, and to mock mercilessly any 
vagueness or incoherence in thought or diction.” 

This friend of children died in 1898. His 
kindly spirit made him seem young, even in his 
old age, and some of his latest letters were writ- 
ten to his child-friends. 






POEMS MISQUOTED BY ALICE 

As some of the poems that Alice attempted to 
recite are not familiar to American children they 
are given here. 

The first poem was published by Isaac Watts 
in his Hymns for Children early in the eighteenth 
century : — 

How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour, 

And gather honey all the day 
From ev’ry opening flower ! 

How skilfully she builds her cell ! 

How neat she spreads the wax ! 

And labors hard to store it well 
With the sweet food she makes. 

In works of labor, or of skill, 

I would be busy too ; 

For Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do. 
xix 


XX 


POEMS MISQUOTED BY ALICE 


In books or work or healthful play, 

Let my first years be past, 

That I may give for ev’ry day 
Some good account at last. 

Father William was written by Robert Southey, 
an English poet, and is somewhat more serious 
than Alice’s production: — 

“ You are old, Father William,” the young man cried, 

“ The few locks that are^left you are gray ; 

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man, 

Now tell me the reason, I pray.” 

“In the days of my youth,” Father William replied, 

“ I remembered that youth would fiy fast. 

And abused not my health and my vigor at first, 

That I never might need them at last.” 

“ You are old. Father William,” the young man cried, 

“ And pleasures with youth pass away ; 

And yet you lament not the days that are gone. 

Now tell.me the. reason, I pray.” 

“ In the days of my youth,” Father William replied, 

“ I remembered that youth could not last; 

I thought of the future whatever I did. 

That I never might grieve for the past.” 


POEMS MISQUOTED BY ALICE 


XXI 


“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried, 

“ And life must be hastening away ; 

You are cheerful and love to converse upon death. 

Now tell me the reason, I pray.” 

“I am cheerful, young man,” Father William replied, 

“ Let the cause thy attention engage ; 

In the days of my youth I remembered my God, 

And he hath not forgotten my age.” 

THE SLUGGARD 
ISAAC WATTS * 

*Tis the voice of the sluggard, I hear him complain 
“ You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again ; ” 

As the door on the hinges, so he on his bed. 

Turns his sides, and his shoulders, and his heavy head. 

“ A little more sleep and a little more slumber ; ” 

Thus he wastes half his days and his hours without number. 
And when he gets up he sits folding his hands. 

Or walks about saunt’ring, or trifling he stands. 

I passed by his garden, and saw the wild brier. 

The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher; 

The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags. 

And his money still wastes till he starves or he begs. 


xxii POEMS MISQUOTED BY ALICE 

9 

I made him a visit, still hoping to find 

He had took better care for improving his mind; 

He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking. 
But he scarce reads his Bible, and never loves thinking. 

Said I to my heart, “ Here’s a lesson for me ; 

That man’s but a picture of what I might be ; 

But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding, 
Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.” 



CHAPTKR 

CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. 

Down the Rabbit Hole 


1 

IL 

The Pool of Teaks 


. 14 

III. 

A Caucus-race and a Long Tale 

. 27 

. IV. 

The Rabbit sends in a Little 

Bill 

. 39 

V. 

Advice from a Caterpillar 

. 

. 55 

VI. 

Pig and Pepper 

. 

. 68 

VII. 

A Mad Tea-party . 

. 

. 86 

VIII. 

The Queen’s Croquet-ground 

• 

. 101 

IX. 

The Mock Turtle’s Story . 

• 

: 118 

X. 

The Lobster-quadrille . . 

. 

. 134 

XI. 

Who stole the Tarts? 

• • 

. 147 

XII. 

Alice’s Evidence . 

• • 

. . 160 











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All in the golden afternoon 
Full leisurely we glide ; 

For both our oars, with little skill, 

By little arms are plied, 

While little hands make vain pretence 
Our wanderings to guide. 

Ah, cruel Three ! In such an hour, 
Beneath such dreamy weather. 

To beg a tale, of breath too weak 
To stir the tiniest feather ! 

Yet what can one poor voice avail 
Against three tongues together ? 

Imperious Prima flashes forth 
Her edict “ to begin it ” ; 

In gentler tones Secunda hopes 
“ There will be nonsense in it ! 

While Tertia interrupts the tale 
Hot more than once a minute. 


Anon, to sudden silence won, 

In fancy they pursue 
The dream-child moving through a land 
Of wonders wild and new. 

In friendly chat with bird or beast — 

And half believe it true. 

And ever, as the story drained 
The wells of fancy dry. 

And faintly strove that weary one 
To put the subject by, 

‘‘The rest next time — ” “ It is next time! ” 
The happy voices cry. 

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland : 

Thus slowly, one by one. 

Its quaint events were hammered out — 

And now the tale is done. 

And home we steer, a merry crew. 

Beneath the setting sun. 

Alice ! A childish story take. 

And, with a gentle hand. 

Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined 
In Memory’s mystic band, 

Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers 
Pluck’d in a far-off land, 
xxvi 


CHRISTMAS-GR^IETINGS 

[FROM A FAIRY TO A CHILD] 

Lady dear, if Fairies may 
For a moment lay aside 

Cunning tricks and elfish play, 

’Tis at happy Christmas-tide. 

We have heard the children say — 
Gentle children, whom we love — 

Long ago, on Christmas i)ay. 

Came a message from above. 

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, 
They remember it again — 

Echo still the joyful sound 

Peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

Yet the hearts must childlike be 
Where such heavenly guests abide; 

Unto children, in their glee, 

All the year is Christmas-tide ! 

Thus, forgetting tricks and play 
For a moment. Lady dear. 

We would wish you, if we may. 
Merry Christmas, glad New Year! 


Christmas, 1867. 


xxvii 


1 

I 


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CHAPTER I 

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sit- 
ting by her sister on the bank, and of having 
nothing to do : once or twice she had peeped into 
the book her sister was reading, but it had no 
pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the 
B 1 


2 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

use of a book,” thought Alice, “ without pictures 
or conversations ? ” 

So she was considering in her own mind (as 
well as she could, for the hot day made her feel 
very sleepy and stupid) whether the pleasure of 
making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble 
of getting up and picking the daisies, when sud- 
denly a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close 
by her. 

There was nothing so very remarkable in that ; 
nor did Alice think it so very much out of the 
way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “ Oh dear ! 
Oh dear ! I shall be too late ! ” (when she thought 
it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she 
ought to have wondered at this, but at the time 
it all seemed quite natural) ; but wlien the Rabbit 
actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pockety 
and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice 
started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind 
that she had never before seen a rabbit with 
either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take 
out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran 
across the field after it, and was just in time 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 


3 


to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under 
the hedge. 

In another moment down went Alice after it, 
never once considering how in the world she was 
to get out again. 

The rabbit hole went straight on like a tunnel 
for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so 
suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think 
about stopping herself before she found herself 
falling down what seemed to. be a very deep 
well. 

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very, 
slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went 
down to look about her, and to wonder what was 
going to happen next. First, she tried to look 
down and make out what she was coming to, but 
it was too dark to see anything : then she looked 
at the sides of the well, and noticed that they 
were filled with cupboards and book-shelves : here 
and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon 
pegs. She took down a jar from one of the 
shelves as she passed; it was labelled “ORANGE 
MARMALADE,” but to her great disappoint- 


4 


ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


ment it was empty : she did not like to drop the 
jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so .v> 
managed to put it into one of the cupboards as 
she fell past it. 

“ Well ! ” thought Alice to herself, “after such 
a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling 
downstairs ! How brave they’ll all think me at 
home ! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, 
even if I fell off the top of the house ! ” (Which 
was very likely true.) 

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come 
to an end? “ I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen 
by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be get- 
ting somewhere near the centre of the earth. 
Let me see : that would be four thousand miles 
down, I think — ” (for, you see, Alice had learnt 
several things of this sort in her lessons in the 
schoolroom, and though this was not a very good 
opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as 
there was no one to listen to her, still it was good 
practice to say it over) “ — yes, that’s about the 
right distance — but then I wonder what Latitude 
or Longitude I’ve got to ? ” (Alice had not the 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE. 


5 


slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude 
either, but she thought they were nice, grand 
words to say.) 

Presently she began again. “ I wonder if I 
shall fall right through the earth ! How funny 
it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk 
with their heads downwards ! The antipathies,^ I 
think — ” (she was rather glad there ^vas no one 
listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the 
right word) “ — but I shall have to ask them 
what the name of the country is, you know. 
Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand? Or Austra- 
lia? ” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke — 
fancy, curtseying as you’re falling through the 
air ! Do you think you could manage it ?) “ And 
what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for 
asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I 
shall see it written up somewhere.” 

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to 
do, so Alice soon began talking again. “ Dinah’ll 
miss me very much to-night, I should think I ” 

1 Antipathies : Alice meant antipodes — the people who live 
on the opposite side of the earth. 


6 


ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


(Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember 
her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear ! 
I wish you were down here with me ! There are 
no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch 
a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. 
But do cats eat bats, I wonder ? ” And here 
Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on 
saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way : “ Do 
cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats ? ” and sometimes, 
“Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t 
answer either question, it didn’t much matter 
which way she put it. She felt that she was 
dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she 
was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and was say- 
ing to her very earnestly, “ Now, Dinah, tell me the 
truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, 
thump! thump I down she came upon a heap of 
sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over. 

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on 
to her feet in a moment : she looked up, but it was 
all dark overhead : before her was another long 
passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, 
hurrying down it. There was not a moment to 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 


7 


be lost : away went Alice like the wind, and was 
just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, 
“Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it’s get- 
ting ! ” She was close behind it when she turned 
the corner, but the 
Kabbit was no 
longer to be seen : 
she found herself 
in a long, low hall, 
which was lit up 
by a row of lamps 
hanging from the 
roof. 

There were doors 
all round the hall, 
but they were all 
locked; and when Alice had been all the way 
down one side and up the other, trying every 
door, she walked sadly down the middle, won- 
dering how she was ever to get out again. 

Suddenly she came upon a* little three-legged 
table, all made of solid glass : there was nothing 
on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first idea 



8 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

was that this might belong to one of the doors of 
the hall ; but alas ! either the locks were too large, 
or the key was too small, but at any rate it would 
not open any of them. However, on the second 
time round, she came upon a low curtain she had 
not noticed before, and behind it was a little door 
about fifteen inches high: she tried the little 
golden key in the lock, and to her great delight 
it fitted I 

Alice opened the door and found that it led 
into a small passage, not much larger than a rat 
hole : she knelt down and looked along the pas- 
sage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How 
she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wan- 
der about among those beds of bright flowers and 
those cool fountains, but she could not even get 
her head through the doorway ; “ and even if my 
head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “ it 
would be of very little use without my shoulders. 
Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope ! 
I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.” 
For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had 
happened lately, that Alice had begun to tl^nk 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 


9 


that very few things indeed were really impos- 
sible. 

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the 
little door, so she went back to the table, half 
hoping she might find another key on it, or at 
any rate a book of rules 
for ’ shutting people up 
like telescopes : this time 
she found a little bottle 
on it (“which certainly 
was not here before,” 
said Alice), and tied 
round the neck of the 
bottle was a paper label, 
with the words “DRINK 
ME” beautifully 
printed on it in large 
letters. 

It was all very well 
to say, “ Drink me,” but 
the wise little Alice was not going to do that in 
a hurry : “ no. I’ll look first,” she said, “ and see 
whether it’s marked ^poison' or not; ” for she had 



10 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

read several nice little stories about children who 
had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and 
other unpleasant things, all because they would 
not remember the simple rules their friends had 
taught them, such as, that a red-hot poker will 
burn you if you hold it too long ; and that if you 
cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually 
bleeds ; and she had never forgotten that, if you 
drink much from a bottle marked “ poison,” it is 
almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. 

However, this bottle was not marked “poison,” 
so Alice ventured to taste' it, and, finding it very 
nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavor of 
cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy, 
and hot buttered toast), she very soon finished 
it off. 

* * * 

^ * 

^ ^ ^ ^ 

“ What a curious feeling ! ” said Alice. “ I 
must be shutting up like a telescope ! ” 

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 


11 


inches high, and her face brightened up at the 
thought that she was now the right size for going 
through the little door into that lovely garden. 
First, however, she waited for a few minutes to 
see if she was going to shrink any further : she 
felt a little nervous about this ; “ for it might end, 
you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going 
out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I 
should be like then ? ” And she tried to fancy 
what the flame of a candle looks like after the 
candle is blown out, for she could not remember 
ever having seen such a thing. 

After a while, finding that nothing more hap- 
pened, she decided on going into the garden at 
once, but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the 
door, she found she had forgotten the little golden 
key, and when she went back to the table for it, she 
found she could not possibly reach it : she could 
see it quite plainly through ^the glass, and she tried 
her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, 
but it. was too slippery, and when she had tired 
herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat 
down and cried. 


12 ALIGE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ Come, there’s no use in crying like that ! ” 
said Alice to herself, rather sharply, “ I advise you 
to leave off this minute ! ” She generally gave 
herself very good advice (though she very seldom 
followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so 
severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she 
remembered trying to box her own ears for hav- 
ing cheated herself in a game of croquet she was 
playing against herself, for this curious child was 
very fond of pretending to be two people. “ But 
it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “ to pretend 
to be two people ! Why, there’s hardly enough 
of me left to make one respectable person ! ” 

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was 
lying under, the table : she opened it, and found 
in it a very small cake, on which the words “ EAT 
ME ” were beautifully marked in currants. 
“ W ell. I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “ and if it makes 
me grow larger, I can reach the key ; and if it 
makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the 
door : so either way I’ll get into the. garden, and 
I don’t care which happens ! ” 

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself: 


DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 


13 


“ Which way ? Which way ? ” holding her hand on 
the top of her head to feel which way it was grow- 
ing ; and she was quite surprised to find that she 
remained the same size. To be sure, this is what 
generally happens when one eats cake ; but Alice 
had got so much into the way of expecting noth- 
ing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it 
seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in 
the common way. 

So she set to work, and very soon finished off 
the cake. 

* ^ 4f: 

* * 

* if: * 


CHAPTER II 

THE POOL OF TEARS 

“ CuRiousER and curiouser ! ” cried Alice (she 
was so much surprised, that for the moment she 
quite forgot how to speak good English). “ Now 
I’m opening out like the largest telescope that 
ever was ! Good-by, feet ! ” (for when she 
looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost 
out of sight, they were getting so far off). Oh, 
my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your 
shoes and stockings for you now, dears ? I’m 
sure I shan’t be able ! I shall be a great deal 
too far off to trouble myself about you ; you must 
manage the best way you can ; but I must be 
kind to them,” thought Alice, “ or perhaps they 
won’t walk the way I want to go ! Let me see : 
ril give them a new pair of boots every Christ- 
mas.” 

14 


THE POOL OF TEARS 


15 


And she went on planning to herself how she 
would manage it. “ They must go by the carrier,” 
she thought ; “ and how funny it’ll seem, sending 
presents to one’s own feet ! And how odd the 
directions will look ! 

AlMs Right Foot, Esq., 

Hearthrug, 

near the Fender, 

(with Alice’s love). 

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking ! ” 

Just at this moment her head struck against the 
roof of the hall : in fact she was now rather more 
than nine feet high, and she at once took up the 
little golden, key and hurried off to the garden 
door. 

Poor Alice ! It was as much as she could do, 
lying down on one side, to look through into the 
garden with one eye ; but to get through was 
more hopeless than ever : she sat down and began 
to cry again. 

“ You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said 


16 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


Alice, “ a great girl like you ” (she might well 
say this) “to go on crying in this way ! Stop 



this moment, I tell you ! ” But she went on all 
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there 


THE POOL OF TEARS 


17 


was a large pool all round her, about four inches 
deep, and reaching half down the hall. 

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet 
in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to 
see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit 
returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white 
kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the 
other : he came trotting along in a great hurry, 
muttering to himself, as he came : “ Oh ! The 
Duchess, the Duchess ! Oh ! Won't she be sav- 
age if I’ve kept her waiting ! ” Alice felt so des- 
perate that she was ready to ask help of any one ; 
so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in 
a low, timid voice, “ If you please, sir — ” The 
Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid 
gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the 
darkness as hard as he could go. 

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the 
hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the 
time she went on talking. “ Dear, dear ! How 
queer everything is to-day ! And yesterday things 
went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been 
changed in the night ? Let me think : was I the 


18 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

same when I got up this morning ? I almost 
think I can remember feeling a little different. 
But if I’m not the same, the next question is, ‘ Who 
in the world am I ? ’ Ah, that's the great puzzle ! ” 
And she began thinking over all the children she 
knew that were of the same age as herself, to see 
if she could have been changed for any of them. 

“ I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “ for her 
hair goes in such long, ringlets, and mine doesn’t 
go in ringlets at all ; and I’m sure I can’t be 
Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh, 
she knows such a very little ! Besides, sAe’sishe, 
and Tm I, and — oh dear, how puzzling it all is ! 
I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. 
Let me see : four times five is twelve, and four 
times six is thirteen, and four times seven is — oh 
dear ! I shall never get to twenty at that rate ! 
However, the Multiplication Table don’t signify: 
let’s try Geography. London is the capital of 
Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome 
— no that's all wrong, I’m certain ! I must have 
been changed for Mabel ! I’ll try and say, ‘ Sow 
doth the little — ’” and she crossed her hands on 


THE POOL OF TEARS 


19 


her lap, as if she were saying lessons, and began to 
repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, 
and the words did not come the same as they used 
to do : — 

“ How doth the little crocodile 
Improve his shining tail, 

And pour the waters of the Nile 
On every golden scale ! 

“ How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

How neatly spreads his claws. 

And welcomes little fishes in 
With gently smiling jaws ! ” 

“ I’m sure those are not the right words,” said 
poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as 
she went on : “ I must be Mabel after all, and I 
shall have to go and live in that poky little house, 
and have next to no toys to play with, and oh, 
ever so many lessons to learn ! No, I’ve made up 
my mind about it : if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down 
here ! It’ll be no use their putting their heads 
down and saying, ‘ Come up again, dear ! ’ I 
shall only look up and say : ‘ Who am I, then ? 


20 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that 
person. I’ll come up : if not. I’ll stay down here 
till I’m somebody else’ — but, oh dear!” cried 
Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, “ I do wish 
they would put their heads down I I am so very 
tired of being all alone here ! ” 

As she said this she looked down at her hands, 
and was surprised to see that she had put on one 
of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while she 
was talking. “ How can I have done that ? ” 
she thought. “I must be growing small again.” 
She got up and went to the table fo measure her- 
self by it, and found that, as nearly as she could 
guess, she was now about tw^o feet high, and was 
going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out 
that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, 
and she dropped it hastily, just in time to save 
herself from shrinking away altogether. 

“ That was a narrow escape ! ” said Alice,, a 
good deal frightened at the sudden change, but 
very glad to find herself still in existence ; “ and 
now for the garden I ” and she ran with all speed 
back to the little door : but alas ! the little door 


THE POOL OF TEARS 


21 


was shut again, and the little golden key was 
lying on the glass table as before, “and things 
are worse than ever,” thought the poor child, 
“ for I never was so small as this before, never 1 
And I declare it’s too bad, that it is ! ” 

As she said these words her foot slipped, and in 
another moment, splash ! she was up to her chin in 
salt water. Her first idea was that she had some- 
how fallen into the sea, “ and in that case I can go 
back by railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had 
been to the seaside once in her life, and had come 
to the general conclusion that, wherever you go to 
on the English coast, you find a number of bathing 
machines in the sea, some children digging in the 
sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging- 
houses, and behind them a railway station.) How- 
ever, she soon made out that she was in the pool of 
tears which she had wept when she was nine feet 
high. 

“ I wish I hadn’t cried so much ! ” said Alice, 
as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 
“ I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by 
being drowned in my own tears ! That will be a 


22 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

queer thing, to be sure ! However, everything is 
queer to-day.” 

Just then she heard something splashing about 
in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer 
to make out what it was : at first she thought it 
must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she 
remembered how small she was now, and she 
soon made out that it was only a mouse, that 
had slipped in like herself. 

‘‘Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, 
“ to speak to this mouse ? Everything is so out- 
of-the-way down here, that I should think very 
likely it can talk : at any rate there’s no harm in 
trying.” So she began : “ O Mouse, do you know 
the way out of this pool ? I am very tired of swim- 
ming about here, 0 Mouse ! ” (Alice thought this 
must be the right way of speaking to a mouse : she 
had never done such a thing before, but she remem- 
bered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, 
“ A mouse — of a mouse — to a mouse — a mouse 

r 

— O mouse ! ”) The mouse looked at her rather 
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one 
of its little eyes, but it said nothing. 


THE POOL OF TEARS 


23 


“ Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” 
thought Alice, “ I daresay it’s a French mouse, 
come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, 
with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very 
clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) 
So she began again, “Ou est ma chatte ? ’’^ which 
was the first sentence in her French lesson book. 
The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, 
and seemed to quiver all over with fright. “ Oh, 
I beg your pardon ! ” cried Alice, hastily, afraid 
that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “ I 
quite forgot you didn’t like cats.” 

“Not like cats !” cried the Mouse in a shrill, 
passionate voice. “ Would you like cats, if you 
were me ? ” 

“ Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing 
tone : “ don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish 
I could show you our cat Dinah : I think you’d 
take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She 
is such a dear quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to 
herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, “ and 
she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws 

1 Oil est ma chatte ? (oo a ma shat ?) Where is my cat ? 


,24 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

and washing her face — and she is such a nice soft 
thing to nurse — and she’s such a capital one for 
catching mice — oh, I beg your pardon ! ” cried 
Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling 
all over, and she felt certain it must be really 



offended. “ We won’t talk about her any more, if 
you’d rather not.” 

“We, indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was 
trembling down to the end of its tail. “ As if I 
would talk on such a subject I Our family always 
hated cats : nasty, low, vulgar things I Don’t let 
me hear the name again ! ” 



THE POOL OF TEARS 


25 


“ I won’t indeed ! ” said Alice, in a great hurry 
to change the subject of conversation. “ Are you — 
are you fond — of — of dogs ? ” The* Mouse did not 
answer, so Alice went on eagerly : “ There is such 
a nice little dog, near our house, I should like to 
show you ! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, 
with oh, such long curly brown hair ! And it’ll 
fetch things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up 
and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things — 
I can’t remember half of them — and it belongs to 
a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s 
worth a hundred pounds ! He says it kills all the 
rats and — oh dear ! ” cried Alice in a sorrowful 
tone. “ I’m afraid I’ve offended it again ! ” For 
the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard 
as it could go, and making quite a commotion in 
the pool as it went. • 

So she called softly after it : “ Mouse dear ! 
Do come back again, and we won’t talk about 
cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them ! ” 
When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and 
swam slowly back to her ; its face was quite pale 
(with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a 


26 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

low, trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, 
and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll 
understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” 

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting 
quite crowded with the birds and animals that 
had fallen into it : there was a Duck and a Dodo,^ 
a Lory ^ and an Eaglet, and several other curious 
creatures. Alice led the way, .and the whole 
party swam to the shore. 

1 Do'do : an awkward bird with hooked bill, short tail, and 
small wings which formerly lived on an island in the Indian 
Ocean. It is no longer to be found. 

2 Lo'ry : a kind of parrot. 



CHAPTER III 

A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE 

They were indeed a queer-looking party that 
assembled on the bank — the birds with draggled 
feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close 
to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and un- 
comfortable. 

The first question of course was, how to get 
27 


28 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

dry again ; they had a consultation about this, 
and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural 
to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with 
them, as if she had known them all her life. 
Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the 
Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only 
say, “ I am older than you, and must know 
better ; ” and this Alice would not allow, without 
knowing how old it was, and as the Lory posi- 
tively refused to tell its age, there was no more 
to be said. 

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person 
of some authority among them, called out : “ Sit 
down, all of you, and listen to me ! Fll soon 
make you dry enough ! ” They all sat down at 
once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the 
middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on 
it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if 
she did not get dry very soon. 

“ Ahem ! ” said the Mouse with an important 
air, “ are you all ready ? This is the driest 
thing I know. Silence all round, if you please ! 
‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was favored 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE 


29 


by the pope, was soon submitted to by the Eng- 
lish, who wanted leaders, and had been of late 
much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. 
Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and 
N orthumbria — 

“ Ugh ! ” said the Lory with a shiver. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said the Mouse, frown- 
ing, but very politely. “Did you speak?” 

“ Not I ! ” said the Lory, hastily. 

“ I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “ I pro- 
ceed. ‘ Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia 
and Northumbria, declared for him ; and even 
Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, 
found it, advisable — ’ ” 

“Found whatV^ said the Duck. 

“Found the Mouse replied rather crossly; 
“of course you know what ‘it’ means.” 

“ I know what ‘ it ’ means well enough when I 
find a thing,” said the Duck; “it’s generally a 
frog or a worm. The question is, what did the 
archbishop find?” 

The Mouse did not notice this question, but 
hurriedly went on, “‘ — found it advisable to go 


30 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer 
him the crown. William’s conduct at first was 
moderate. But the insolence of his Normans — ’ 
How are you getting on now, my dear?” it con- 
tinued, turning to Alice as it spoke. 

“ As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melan- 
choly tone ; “ it doesn’t seem to dry me at 

all.” 

“ In that case,” said the Dodo, solemnly, rising 
to its feet, “ I move that the meeting adjourn, 
for the immediate adoption of more energetic 
remedies — ” 

“ Speak English ! ” said the Eaglet. “ I don’t 
know the meaning of half those long words, and 
what’s more, I don’t believe you do either ! ” 
And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a 
smile : some of the other birds tittered audi- 
.bly. 

“ What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in 
an offended tone, “ was, that the best thing to get 
us dry would be a Caucus-race.” 

“ What is a Caucus-race ? ” said Alice ; not that 
she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had 


A CAUCUS-BACE AND A LONG TALE 


31 


paused as if it thought that somebody ought to 
speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say 
anything. 

“ Why,” said the Dodo, “ the best way to ex- 
plain it is to do it.” (And, as you might like 
to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will 
tell you how the Dodo managed it.) 

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of 
circle (“ the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said), 
and then all the party were placed along the course, 
here and there. There was no “ One, two, three, 
and away ! ” but they began running when they 
liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was 
not easy to know when the race was over. How- 
ever, when they had been running half an hour or 
so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly 
called out, “ The race is over ! ” and they all 
crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who 
has won ? ” 

This question the Dodo could not answer with- 
out a great deal of thought, and it stood for a long 
time with one finger pressed upon its forehead 
(the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, 


32 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in 
silence. At last the Dodo said, “ Everybody has 
won, and all must have prizes.” 

“ But who is to give the prizes? ” quite a chorus 
of voices asked. 

“ Why, she^ of course,” said the Dodo, pointing 
to Alice with one finger ; and the whole party at 
once crowded round her, calling out in a confused 
way, “ Prizes ! prizes ! ” 

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair 
she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled 
out a box of comfits (luckily' the salt water had 
not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. 
There was exactly one apiece, all round. 

“ But she must have a prize herself, you know,” 
said the Mouse. 

“ Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. 
“What else have you got in your pocket?” he 
went on, turning to Alice. 

“ Only a thimble,” said Alice, sadly. 

“ Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. 

Then they all crowded round her once more, 
while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble. 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE 


33 



saying, We beg your acceptance of this elegant 


thimble ; ” and, when it had finished this short 
speech, they all cheered. 

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but 


34 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


they all looked so grave that she did not dare to 
laugh, and as she could not think of anything to 
say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, 
looking as solemn as she could. 

The next thing was to eat the comfits : this 
caused some noise and confusion, as the large 
birds complained that they could not taste theirs, 
and the small ones choked and had to be patted 
on the' back. However, it was over at last, and 
they sat down again in a , ring, and begged the 
Mouse to tell them something more. 

“ You promised to tell me your history, you 
know,” said Alice, “ and why is it you hate — C 
and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that 
it would be offended again. 

“Mine is a long and a sad tale,” said the 
Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. 

“ It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, look- 
ing down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail ; “ but 
why do you call it sad ? ” And she kept on puz- 
zling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so 
that her idea of the tale was something like 
this : — 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE 


35 


u 


Fury said to a 
mouse, That he met 
in the house, ‘ Let 

us both go to 
law : / will 


prosecute 
you. — Come, 
I’ll take no 
denial: We 
must have 
the trial ; 

For really 
this morn- 
ing’ I’ve 
nothing 
to do.’ 

Said the 
mouse to 
the cur, 

‘Such a 
trial, dear 
sir. With 
no jury 
or judge, 
would 
be wast- 


ing our 
breath.’ 
‘I’ll be 

jury,’ 

said 

cun- 

o"§ 

try 
the 
whole 
cause, 
and 
con- 
demn 
TOU to 
death.* ” 


36 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to 
Alice, severely. “ What are you thinking of ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Alice, very humbly ; 
“ you had got to the fifth bend, I think ? ” 

“I had not!’’’’ cried the Mouse, sharply and 
very angrily. 

“ A knot I ” said Alice, always ready to make 
herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. 
“ Oh, do let me help to undo it I ” 

“ I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, 
getting up and walking away. “ You insult me 
by talking such nonsense I ” 

“ I didn’t mean it I ” pleaded poor Alice. “ But 
you’re so easily offended, you know I ” 

The Mouse only growled in reply. 

“ Please come back and finish your story,” 
Alice called after it ; and the others all joined in 
chorus, “ Yes, please do I ” but the Mouse only 
shook its head impatiently, and walked a little 
quicker. 

“ What a pity it wouldn’t stay I ” sighed the 
Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight ; and an 
old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her 


A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE 


37 


daughter : “ Ah, my dear ! Let this be a lesson to 
you never to lose your temper ! ” — “ Hold your 
tongue, Ma ! ” said the young Crab, a little snap- 
pishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of 
an oyster ! ” 

“ I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do ! ” 
said Alice, aloud, addressing nobody in particular. 
“ She'd soon fetch it back ! ” 

“ And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask 
the question ? ” said the Lory. 

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready 
to talk about her pet : “ Dinah’s our cat. And 
she’s such a capital one for catching mice, you 
can’t think ! And oh, I wish you could see her 
after the birds ! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as 
soon as look at it ! ” 

This speech caused a remarkable sensation 
among the party. Some of the birds hurried off 
at once : one old Magpie began wrapping itself 
up very carefully, remarking, “I really must be 
getting home : the night air doesn’t suit my 
throat ! ” and a canary called out in a trembling 
voice to its children : “ Come away, my dears ! It’s 


38 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

high time you were all in bed ! ” On various pre- 
texts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left 
alone. 

“ I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah,” she said 
to herself in a melancholy tone. “ Nobody seems 
to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best 
cat in the world ! Oh, my dear Dinah ! I wonder 
if I shall ever see you any more.” And here poor 
Alice began to cry. again, for she felt very lonely 
and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she 
again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the 
distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping 
that the Mouse had changed his mind and was 
coming back to finish his story. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back 
again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as 
if it had lost something ; and she heard it mutter- 
ing to itself : “ The Duchess ! The Duchess ! Oh, 
my dear paws ! Oh, my fur and whiskers ! She’ll 
get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets ! 
Where can I have dropped them, I wonder ? ” 
Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for 
the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she 
very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, 
but they were nowhere to be seen — everything 
seemed to have changed since her swim in the 
pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and 
the little door, had vanished completely. 

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she 
went hunting about, and called out to her in an 
39 


40 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

angry tone : “ Why, Mary Ann, what are you 
doing out here? Run home this moment, and 
fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan ! Quick, 
now ! ” And Alice was so much frightened that 
she ran off at once in the direction it pointed 
to, without trying to explain the mistake that 
it had made. 

“He took me for his housemaid,” she said to 
herself as she ran. “ How surprised he’ll be 
when he finds out who I am ! But I’d better 
take him his fan and gloves — that is, if I can 
find them.” As she said this, she came upon 
a neat little house, on the door of which was a 
bright brass plate with the name “ W. RABBIT,” 
engraved upon it. She went in without knock- 
ing, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest 
she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be 
turned out of the house before she had found 
the fan and gloves. 

“ How queer it •seems,” Alice said to herself, 
“to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose 
Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next.” 
And she began fancying the sort of thing that 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 41 

would happen : “ ‘ Miss Alice ! Come here di- 
rectly, and get ready for your walk ! ’ ‘ Coming 

in a minute, nurse ! But I’ve got to watch this 
mouse hole till Dinah comes back, and see that 
the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I don’t think,” 
Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in 
the house if it began ordering people about like 
that.” 

By this time she had found her way into a tidy 
little room with a table in the window, and on it 
(as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs 
of tiny white kid gloves : she took up the fan and 
a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave 
the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle 
that stood near the looking-glass. There was no 
label this time with the words “DRINK ME,” 
but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to 
her lips. “ I know something interesting is sure 
to happen,” she said to herself, “whenever I eat 
or drink anything ; so I’ll just see what this bottle 
does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, 
for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little 
thing.” 


42 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

It did SO, indeed, and much sooner than she had 
expected : before she had drunk half the bottle, 
she found her head pressing against the ceiling, 
and had to stoop to save her neck from being 
broken. Slie hastily put down the bottle, say- 
ing to herself: “That’s quite enough — I hope I 
shan’t grow any more — As it is, I can’t get out 
at the door — I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so 
much ! ” 

Alas ! It was too late to wish that. She went 
on growing and growing, and very soon had to 
kneel down on the floor : in another minute there 
was not even room for this, and she tried the 
effect of lying down, with one elbow against the 
door, and the other arm curled round her head. 
Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, 
she put one arm out of the window, and one foot 
up the chimney, and said to herself: “Now I can 
do no more, whatever happens. What will become 
of me ? ” 

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had 
now had its full effect, and she grew no larger ; 
still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 43 



seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting 
out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy. 

“ It was much pleasanter at home,” thought 
poor Alice, “ when one wasn’t always growing 
larger and smaller, and being ordered about by 


mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone 
down that rabbit hole — and yet — and yet — it’s 
rather curious, you know, this sort of life ! I 
do wonder what can have happened to me ! When 
I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of 


44 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


thing never happened, and now here 1 am in the 
middle of one ! There ought to be a book written 
about me, that there ought ! And when I grow 
up, nr write one — but I’m grown up now,” she 
added in a sorrowful tone, “at least there’s no 
room to grow up any more Aere.” 

“ But then,” thought Alice, “ shall I never get 
any older than I am now ? That’ll be a comfort, 
one way — never to be an old woman — but then 
— always to have lessons to learn ! Oh, I shouldn’t 
like that!'' 

“ Oh, you foolish Alice ! ” she answered herself. 
“ How can you learn lessons in here ? Why, there’s 
hardly room for you^ and no room at all for any 
lesson books ! ” 

And so she went on, taking first one side and 
then the other, and making quite a conversation 
of it altogether ; but after a few minutes she 
heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. 

“ Mary Ann ! Mary Ann ! ” said the voice. 
“ Fetch me my gloves this moment ! ” Then 
came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice 
knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 45 


and she trembled till she shook the house, quite 
forgetting that she was now about a thousand 
times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to 
be afraid of it. 

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and 
tried to open it ; but as the door opened inwards, 
and Alice’s elbow was 
pressed hard against it, 
that attempt proved a 
failure. Alice heard it 
say to itself, “ Then I’ll 
go round and get in at 
the window.” 

“ That you won’t ! ” 
thought Alice, and, after 
waiting till she fancied 
she heard the Rabbit just 
under the window, she 
suddenly spread out her 
hand and made a snatch 
in the air. She did not 
get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek 
and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which 



46 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

she concluded that it was just possible it had 
fallen into a cucumber frame, or something of the 
sort. 

Next came an angry voice — the Rabbit’s — 
“ Pat ! Pat ! Where are you ?” And then a voice 
she had never heard before : “ Sure, then, I’m here ! 
Digging for apples, yer honor ! ” 

“ Digging for apples, indeed ! ” said the Rabbit, 
angrily. “ Here ! Come and help me out of 
this !” (Sounds of more broken glass.) 

“ Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window ?” 

“ Sure, it’s an arm, yer honor ! ” (He pro- 
nounced it “ arrum.”) 

“ An arm, you goose ! Who ever saw one that 
size ? Why, it fills the whole window ! ” 

“ Sure, it does, yer honor ; but it’s an arm for 
all that.” 

“Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate ; 
go and take it away ! ” 

There was a long silence after this, and Alice 
could only hear whispers now and then ; such as : 
“ Sure, I don’t like it, yer honor, at all, at all ! ” — 
“Do as 1 tell you,’ you coward ! ” and at last she 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 47 


spread out her hand again, and made another 
snatch in the air. This time there were two little 
shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “ What 
a number of cucumber frames there must be ! ” 
thought Alice. “ I wonder what they’ll do next. 
As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish 
they could ! I’m sure I don’t want to stay in here 
any longer ! ” 

She waited for some time without hearing any- 
thing more : at last came a rumbling of little cart- 
wheels, and the sound of a good many voices all 
talking together : she made out the words : 
“ Where’s the other .ladder ? — Why, I hadn’t to 
bring but one : Bill’s got the other — Bill ! fetch 
it here, lad ! — Here, put ’em up at this corner — 
No, tie ’em together first — they don’t reach half 
high enough yet — Oh ! they’ll do well enough ; 
don’t be particular — Here, Bill ! catch hold of 
this rope — Will the roof bear ? — Mind that loose 
slate — Oh, it’s coming down ! Heads below ! ” 
(a loud crash) — “Now, who did that? — It was 
Bill, I fancy — Who’s to go down the chimney ? — 
Nay, I shan’t ! You do it ! — That I won’t the4! — 


48 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN \VONDERLAND 

Bill’s got to go down — Here, Bill! the master 
says you’ve got to go down the chimney I ” 

“ Oh, so Bill’s got to come down the chimney, 
has he ? ” said Alice to herself. “ Why, they 
seem to put everything upon Bill I I wouldn’t 
be in Bill’s place for a good deal : this fireplace 
is narrow, to be sure ; but I think I can kick a 
little. ” 

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as 
she could, and waited till she heard a little animal 
(she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching 
and scrambling about in the chimney close above 
her: then, saying to herself,. “ This is Bill,” she 
gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would 
happen next. 

The first thing she heard was a general chorus 
of, “ There goes Bill I ” then the Rabbit’s voice 
alone — “ Catch him, you by the hedge ! ” then 
silence, and then another confusion of voices — 
“ Hold up his head — Brandy now — Don’t choke 
him — How was it, old fellow ? What happened 
to you ? Tell us all about it.” 

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 49 


(“That’s Bill,” thought Alice), “Well, I hardly 
know — No more, thank ye. I’m better now — but 
I’m a deal too flustered to tell you — all I know 
is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, 
and up I goes like a sky-rocket ! ” 

“ So you did, old fellow ! ” said the others. 

“We must burn the house down! ” said the 
Rabbit’s voice, and Alice called out as loud as she 
could, “ If you do. I’ll set Dinah at you ! ” 

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice 
thought to herself: “I wonder what they will do 
next I If they had any sense, they’d take the roof 
off.” After a minute or two they began moving 
about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, “ A 
barrowful will do, to begin with.” 

“A barrowful of what?''^ thought Alice; but 
she had not long to doubt, for the next moment 
a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the 
window, and some of them hit her in the face. 
“ I’ll put a stop to this,” she said to herself, and 
shouted out, “ You’d better not do that again I ” 
which produced another dead silence. 

Alice noticed, with some surprise, that the peb- 


50 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


bles were all turning into little cakes as they lay 
on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. 
“ If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “ it’s 
sure to make some change in my size ; and as it 
can’t possibly make me larger, it must make me 
smaller, I suppose.” 

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was 
delighted to find that she began s-hrinking directly. 
As soon as she was small enough to get through 
the door, she ran out of the house, and found 
quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting 
outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the 
middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who 
were giving it something out of a bottle. They 
all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; 
but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon 
found herself safe in a thick wood. 

“ The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice to 
herself, as she wandered about in the wood, “is 
to grow to my right size again; and the second 
thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. 
I think that will be the best plan.” 

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 51 


very neatly and simply arranged ; the only diffi- 
culty was, that she had not the smallest idea how 
to set about it ; and while she was peering about 
anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just 
over her head made her look up in a great hurry. 

An enormous puppy was looking down at her 
with large, round eyes, and feebly stretching out 
one paw, trying to touch her. “ Poor little 
thing ! ” said Alice in a coaxing tone, and she 
tried hard to whistle to it, but she was terribly 
frightened all the time at the thought that it 
might be hungry, in which case it would be very 
likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing. 

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a 
little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy : 
whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all 
its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed 
at the stick, and made believe to worry it ; then 
Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep her- 
self from being run over, and the moment she 
appeared on the other side, the puppy made an- 
other rush at the stick, and tumbled head over 
heels in its hurry to get hold of it ; then Alice, 


52 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


thinking it was very like having a game of play 



with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to 


THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL 53 


be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle 
again; then the puppy began a series of short 
charges at the stick, running a very little way for- 
wards each time and a long way back, and bark- 
ing hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down 
a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging 
out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. 

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for 
making her escape, so she set off at once, and ran 
till she was quite tired and out of breath, and 
till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the 
distance. 

“ And yet what a dear little puppy it was I ” 
said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest 
herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves. 
“ I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, 
if — if I’d only been the right size to do it. Oh 
dear ! I’d nearly forgotten that I’ve got to grow 
up again. Let me see — how is it to be managed ? 
I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or 
other; but the great question is ‘What?’” 

The great question certainly was “What?” 
Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the 


54 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

blades of grass, but she could not see anything 
that looked like the right thing to eat or drink 
under the circumstances. There was a large 
V mushroom growing near her, about the same 
height as herself ; and when she had looked 
under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it 
occurred to her that she might as well look and 
see what was on the top of it. 

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped 
over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes im- 
mediately met those of a large blue caterpillar 
that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, 
quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not 
the smallest notice of her or of anything else. 



CHAPTER V 

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other 
for some time in silence ; at last the Caterpillar 
took the hookah out of its mouth and addressed 
!ier in a languid, sleepy voice. 

55 


56 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ Who are you f ” said the Caterpillar. 

This was not an encouraging opening for a con- 
versation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I — I 
hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know 
who I was when I got up this morning, but I think 
I must have been changed several times since 
then.” 

“ What do you mean by that ? ” said the Cater- 
pillar, sternly. “ Explain yourself ! ” 

“I can’t explain myself^ I’m afraid, sir,” said 
Alice, “ because I’m not myself, you see.” 

“ I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. 

“ I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice 
replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it 
myself to begin with ; and being so many different 
sizes in a day is very confusing.” 

“ It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” 
said Alice ; “ but when you have to turn into a 
chrysalis — you will some day, you know — and 
then after that into a butterfly, I should think 
you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you ? ” 

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


57 


“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” 
said Alice ; “ all I know is, it would feel very 
queer to me.'^ 

“You!” said the Caterpillar, contemptuously. 
“ Who are yow ” 

Which brought them back again to the begin- 
ning of the conversation. Alice felt a little 
irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very 
short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, 
very gravely, “ I think you ought to tell me who 
you are, first.” 

“ Why ? ” said the Caterpillar. 

Here was another puzzling question ; and as 
Alice could not think of any good reason, and the 
Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state 
of mind, she turned away. 

“ Come back ! ” the Caterpillar called after her. 
“ I’ve something important to say ! ” 

This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned 
and came back again. 

“ Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Is that all? ” said Alice, swallowing down her 
anger as well as she could. 


58 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ No,” said the Caterpillar. 

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she 
had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it 
might tell her something worth hearing. For 
some minutes it puffed away without speaking, 
but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah 
out of its mouth again, and said, “ So you think 
you’re changed, do you?” 

“ I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice ; “ I can’t 
remember things as I used — and I don’t keep 
the same size for ten minutes together.” 

“ Can’t remember what things?” said the Cater- 
pillar. 

“Well, I’ve tried to say ‘How doth the little 
busy bee,’ but it all came different,” Alice re- 
plied in a very melancholy voice. 

“ Repeat ‘ You are old, Father William,' ” said 
the Caterpillar. 

Alice folded her hands and began : — 

“ ‘ You are old, Father William,’ the young man said, 

‘ And your hair has become very white ; 

And yet you incessantly stand on your head — 

Do you think, at your age, it is right ? ’ 


' ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


59 


“ ‘ In my youth/ Father William replied to his son, 

‘ I feared it might injure the brain; 

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, 

Why, I do it again and again.’ 

“ ‘ You are old,’ said the youth, ‘ as I mentioned before, 

And have grown most uncommonly fat ; 

Yet you turned a back -somersault in at the door — . 

Pray, what is the reason of that ? ’ 

“ ‘ In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, 

‘ I kept all my limbs very supple 

By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box -=- 
Allow me to sell you a couple.’ , 

“ ‘ You are old,’ said the youth, ‘ and your jaws are too weak 
For anything tougher than suet ; 

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak — 
Pray, how did you manage to do it ? ’ 

‘ In my youth,’ said his father, ‘ I took to the law. 

And argued each case with my wife ; 

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw 
Has lasted the rest of my life.’ 

“ ‘ You are old,’ said the youth ; ‘ one would hardly suppose 
.That your eye was as steady as ever ; 


60 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose — 

What made you so awfully clever ? ’ 

“ ‘ I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’ 
Said his father ; ‘ don’t give yourself airs ! 

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff ? 

Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs ! ’ ” 

“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. 

“ Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly ; 
“some of the words have got altered.” 

“ It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the 
Caterpillar, decidedly ; and there was silence for 
some minutes. 

The Caterpillar was the first to speak. 

“ What size do you want to be? ” it asked. 

“ Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily 
replied ; “ only one doesn’t like changing so often, 
you know.” 

“ I don't know,” said the Caterpillar. 

Alice said nothing ; she had never been so much 
contradicted in all her life before, and she felt that 
she was losing her temper. 

“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


61 


“ Well, I should like to be a little larger, Sir, if 
you wouldn’t mind,” said Alice ; “ three inches is 
such a wretched height to be.” 

‘‘It is a very good height, indeed!” said the 
Caterpillar, angrily, rearing itself upright as it 
spoke (it was exactly three inches high). 

“ But I’m not used to it I ” pleaded poor Alice 
in a piteous tone. And she thought to herself, “ I 
wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended I ” 

“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the Cater- 
pillar ; and it put the hookah into its mouth and 
began smoking again. 

This time Alice waited patiently until it chose 
to speak again. In a minute or two the Cater- 
pillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and 
yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then 
it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away 
into the grass, merely remarking as it went, “ One 
side will make you grow taller, and the other side 
will make you grow shorter.” 

“One side of what? The other side of what?'' 
thought Alice to herself. 

“ Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as 


62 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

if she had asked it aloud ; and in another moment 
it was out of sight. 

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mush- 
room for a minute, trying to make out which were 
the two sides of it ; and as it was perfectly round, 
she found this a very difficult question. However, 
at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they 
would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each 
hand. 

“ And now which is which ? ” she said to herself, 
and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the 
effect. The next moment she felt a violent blow 
underneath her chin ; it had struck her foot ! 

She was a good deal frightened by this very 
sudden change, but she felt that there was no 
time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly : so 
she set to work at once to eat some of the other 
bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her 
foot that there was hardly room to open her mouth ; 
but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a 
morsel of the left-hand bit. 

* * * * 

mt * * * ‘ 

« ♦ # « 4K 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


63 


“ Come, my head’s free at last ! ” said Alice in 
a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in 
another moment, when she found that her shoul- 
ders were nowhere to be found : all she could see, 
when she looked down, was an immense length of 
neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a 
sea of green leaves that lay far below her. 

“ What can all that green stuff be? ” said Alice. 
“And where have my shoulders got to? And oh, 
my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?” She 
was moving them about as she spoke, but no 
result seemed to follow, except a little shaking 
among the distant green leaves. 

As there seemed to be no chance of getting her 
hands up to her head, she tried to get her head 
down to them, and was delighted to find that her 
neck would bend about easily in any direction, 
like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curv- 
ing it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going 
to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be 
nothing but the tops of the trees under which she 
had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her 
draw back in a hurry : a large pigeon had flown 


64 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

into her face, and was beating her violently with 
its wings. 

“ Serpent ! ” screamed the Pigeon. 

“ Pm not a serpent ! ” said Alice, indignantly. 
“ Let me alone ! ” 

“ Serpent, I say again ! ” repeated the Pigeon, 
but in a more subdued tone, and added, with a 
kind of sob, “ Pve tried every way, but nothing 
seems to suit them ! ” 

“ I haven’t the least idea wlmt you’re talking 
about,” said Alice. 

“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried 
banks, and I’ve tried hedges,” the Pigeon went 
on, without attending to her ; “ but those ser- 
pents ! There’s no pleasing them ! ” 

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she 
thought there was no use in saying anything 
more till the Pigeon had finished. 

“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the 
eggs,” said the Pigeon ; “but I must be on 
the look-out for serpents night and day ! Why, 
I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three 
weeks ! ” 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


65 


“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said 
Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. 

“ And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the 
wood,” continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to 
a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I should be 
free of them at last, they must needs come wrig- 
gling down from the sky ! Ugh ! Serpent ! ” 

“ But I’m not a serpent, I tell you I ” said Alice, 
“I’m a — I’m a — ” 

“Well! Whoft are you?” said the Pigeon. 
“ I can see you’re trying to invent something I ” 
“I — I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather doubt- 
fully, as she remembered the number of changes 
she had gone through that day. 

“ A likely story, indeed I ” said the Pigeon in a 
tone of the deepest contempt. “ I’ve seen a good 
many little girls in my time, but never one with 
such a neck as that I No, no ! You’re a serpent; 
and there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll 
be telling me next that you never tasted an egg I ” 
“I have tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, who 
was a very truthful child; “but little girls eat 
eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.” 


F 


66 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon ; “ but if 
they do, why, then they’re a kind of serpent: 
that’s all I can say.” 

This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was 
quite silent for a minute or two, which gave the 
Pigeon the opportunity of adding, “ You’re look- 
ing for eggs, I know that well enough ; and what 
does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl 
or a serpent? ” 

“ It matters a good deal to we;” said Alice, has- 
tily; “but I’m not looking for eggs, as it hap- 
pens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want yours: I 
don’t like them raw.” 

“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a 
sulky tone, as it settled down again into its nest. 
Alice crouched down among the trees as well as 
she could, for her neck kept getting entangled 
among the branches, and every now and then she 
had to stop and untwist it. After a while she 
remembered that she still held the pieces of mush- 
room in her hands, and she set to work very care- 
fully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, 
and growing sometimes taller and sometimes 


ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR 


67 


shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing her- 
self down to her usual height. 

It was so long since she had been anything 
near the right size, that it felt quite strange at 
first, but she got used to it in a few minutes, and 
began talking to herself as usual. “ Come, there’s 
half my plan done now ! How puzzling all these 
changes are ! I’m never sure what I’m going to 
be from one minute to another ! However, I’ve 
got back to my right size : the next thing is, to 
get into that beautiful garden — how is that to be 
done, I wonder ? ” As she said this, she came sud- 
denly upon an open place, with a little house in 
it about four feet high. “ Whoever lives there,” 
thought Alice, “ it’ll never do to come upon them 
this size : why, I should frighten them out of their 
wits ! ” So she began nibbling at the right-hand 
bit again, and did not venture to go near the 
house till she had brought herself down to nine 
inches high. 


CHAPTER VI 


PIG AND PEPPER 

For a minute or two she stood looking at the 
house, and wondering what to do next, when 
suddenly a footman in livery came running out of 
the wood (she considered him to be a footman 
because he was in livery : otherwise, judging by 
his face only, she would have called him a fish) and 
rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It 
was opened by another footman in livery, with a 
round face and large eyes like a frog; and both foot- 
men, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled 
all over their heads. She felt very curious to 
know what it was all about, and crept a little way 
out of the wood to listen. 

The Fish-Footman began by producing from 
under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as 
68 


PIG AND PEPPER 


69 


himself, and this he handed over to the other, say- 
ing, in a solemn tone, “ For the Duchess. An 



invitation from the Queen to play croquet.” The 
Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, 
only changing the order of the words a little: 



70 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess 
to play croquet.” 

Then they both bowed low, and their curls got 
entangled together. 

Alice laughed so much at this that she had to 
run back into the wood for fear of their hearing 
her, and when she next peeped out the Fish-Foot- 
man was gone and the other was sitting on the 
ground near the door, staring stupidly up into 
the sky. 

Alice went timidly up to the door and 
knocked. 

“ There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the 
Footman, “and that for two reasons. First, be- 
cause I’m on the same side of the door as you 
are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise 
inside no one could possibly hear you.” And 
certainly there was a most extraordinary noise 
going on within — a constant howling and sneez- 
ing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a 
dish or kettle had been broken to pieces. 

“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get 
in?” 


PIG AND PEPPER 


71 


“ There might be some sense in your knocking,” 
the Footman went on, without attending to her, 
“ if we had the door between us. For instance, if 
you were inside^ you might knock, and I could let 
you out, you know.” He was looking up into 
the sky all the time he was speaking, and this 
Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “ But perhaps 
he can’t help it,” she said to herself ; “ his eyes 
are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at 
any rate he might answer questions. — How am I 
to get in ? ” she repeated aloud. 

“ I shall sit here,” the Footman remarked, “ till 
to-morrow — ” 

At this moment the door of the house opened, 
and a large plate came skimming out, straight at 
the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and 
broke to pieces against one of the trees behind 
him. 

“ — or next day, maybe,” the Footman con- 
tinued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had 
happened. 

“ How am I to get in ? ” Alice asked again in a 
louder tone. 


72 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ you to get in at all? ” said the Footman. 
“ That’s the first question, you know.” 

It was, no doubt ; only Alice did not like to be 
told so. “ It’s really dreadful,” she muttered to 
herself, “the way all the creatures argue. It’s 
enough to drive one crazy ! ” 

The Footman seemed to think this a good 
opportunity for repeating his remark, with varia- 
tions. “ I shall sit here,” he said, “ on and off, 
for days and days.” 

“ But what am I to do? ” said Alice. 

“ Anything you like,” said the Footman, and 
began whistling. 

“ Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” said 
Alice, desperately ; “ he’s perfectly idiotic ! ” And 
she opened the door and went in. 

The door led right into a large kitchen, which 
was full of smoke from one end to the other : the 
Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the 
middle, nursing a baby: the cook was leaning over 
the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to 
be full of soup. 

“ There’s certainly too much pepper in that 


PIG AND PEPPER 


73 


soup ! ” Alice said to herself, as well as she could 
for sneezing. 

There was certainly too much of it in the air. 



Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as 
for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alter- 
nately without a moment’s pause. The only two 
creatures in the kitchen that did not sneeze were 


74 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

the cook and a large cat which was sitting on the 
hearth and grinning from ear to ear. 

“ Please, would you tell me,” said Alice, a little 
timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was 
good manners for her to speak first, “why your 
cat grins like that? ” 

“ It’s a Cheshire cat,” ^ said the Duchess, “ and 
that’s why. Pig ! ” 

She said the last word with such sudden vio- 
lence that Alice quite jumped ; but she saw in 
another moment that it was addressed to the 
baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and 
went on again : — 

“ I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always 
grinned ; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could 
grin.” 

“ They all can,” said the Duchess ; “ and most 
of ’em do.” 

“ I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said very 
politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a 
conversation. 

1 “He grins like a Cheshire cat” is an old English prov- 
erb. 


PIG AND PEPPER' 


75 


“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; 
“and that’s a fact.” 

Alice did not at all like the tone of this re- 
mark, and thought it would be as well to intro- 
duce some other subject of conversation. While 
she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the 
cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set 
to work throwing everything within her reach 
at the Duchess and the baby — the fire-irons 
came first ; then followed a shower of sauce- 
pans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no 
notice of them even when they hit her; and the 
baby was howling so much already that it was 
quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt 
it or not. 

“ Oh, please mind what you’re doing ! ” cried 
Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of 
terror. “ Oh, there goes his precious nose ! ” as 
an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and 
very nearly carried it off. 

“ If everybody minded their own business,” said 
the Duchess in a hoarse growl, “ the world would 
go round a deal faster than it does.” 


76 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ Which would not be an advantage,” said Alice, 
who felt very glad to get an opportunity of show- 
ing off a little of her knowledge. “ Just think 
what work it would make with the day and night ! 
You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn 
round on its axis — ” 

“ Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “ chop off 
her head ! ” 

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to 
see if she meant to take the hint ; but the cook 
was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to 
be listening, so she went on again : “ Twenty-four 
hours, I think ; or is it twelve ? I — ” 

“Oh, don’t bother me,” said the Duchess ; “I 
never could abide figures.” And with that she 
began nursing her child again, singing a sort of 
lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent 
shake at the end of every line : — 

“ Speak roughly to your little boy, 

And beat him when he sneezes : 

He only does it to annoy, 

Because he knows it teases.” 


PIG AND PEPPER 


77 


Chorus 

(in which the cook and the hahy joined') : — 

“ Wow ! wow ! wow ! ” 

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the 
song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and 
down, and the poor little thing howled so that 
Alice could hardly hear the words : — 

“ I speak severely to my boy, 

I beat him when he sneezes ; 

For he can thoroughly enjoy 
The pepper when he pleases! ” 

Chorus 

“ Wow I wow ! wow 1 ” 

“ Here ! you may nurse it a bit, if you like ! ” 
said the Duchess to Alice, flinging the baby at her 
as she spoke. “ I must go and get ready to play 
croquet with the Queen,” and she hurried out of 
the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her 
as she went, but it just missed her. 


78 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it 
was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its 
arms and legs in all directions,- “ just like a star- 
fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was 
snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, 
and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself 
out again, so that altogether, for the first minute 
or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it. 

As soon as she had made out the proper way of 
nursing it (which was to twist it up into a sort of 
knot, and then keep hold of its right ear and left 
foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself) she 
carried it out into the open air. “ If I don’t take 
this child away with me,” thought Alice, ‘‘ they’re 
sure to kill it in a day or two. Wouldn’t it be 
murder to leave it behind ? ” She said the last 
words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply 
(it had left off sneezing by this time). “ Don’t 
grunt,” said Alice ; “ that’s not at all a proper 
way of expressing yourself.” 

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very 
anxiously into its face to see what was the matter 
with it. There could be no doubt that it had a 


PIG AND PEPPER 


79 


very turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a 
real nose ; also its eyes were getting extremely 
small for a baby : altogether Alice did not like 
the look of the thing 
at all. “ But perhaps 
it was only sobbing,” 
she thought, and 
looked into its eyes 
again, to see if there 
were any tears. 

No, there were no 
tears. “If you’re 
going to turn into a 
pig, my dear,” said 
Alice, seriously, “I’ll 
have nothing more to 
do with you. Mind 
now ! ” The poor lit- 
tle thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impos- 
sible to say which), and they went on for some 
while in silence. 

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, 
“Now, what am I to do with this creature when I 



80 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

get it home ? ” when it grunted again, so violently, 
that she looked down into its face in some alarm. 
This time there could be no mistake about it : it 
was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt 
that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it 
any further. 

So she set the little creature down, and felt 
quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the 
wood. “ If it had grown up,” she said to herself, 
“ it would have been a dreadfully ugly child ; but 
it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.” And 
she began thinking over other children she knew, 
who might do very well as pigs, and was just say- 
ing to herself, “ If one only knew the right way to 
change them — ” when she was a little startled by 
seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a 
tree a few yards off. 

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alioe. It 
looked good-natured, she thought : still it had 
very long claws and a great man}^ teeth, so she 
felt that it ought to be treated with respect. 

“ Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as 
she did not at all know whether it would like 
the name ; however, it only grinned a little wider. 


PIG AND PEPPER 


81 


“ Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and 
she went on. “ Would you tell me, please, which 
way I ought to go from here ? ” 

“ That depends a good deal on where you want 
to get to,” said the Cat. 

“ I don’t much care where — ” said Alice. 

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” 
said the Cat. 

“ — so long as I get somewhere^''’ Alice added 
as an explanation. 

“ Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “ if 
you only walk long enough.” 

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she 
tried another question. “ What sort of people 
live about here ? ” 

“ In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its 
right paw round, “ lives a Hatter : and in that 
direction,” waving the other paw, “ lives a March 
Hare. Visit either you like : they’re both mad.” ^ 

1 “ Mad as a Hatter ” and “ Mad as a March Hare ” are two 
old English proverbs of unknown origin. The wild actions of 
the hare in March, the breeding season, may explain the latter 
proverb. 


82 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” 
Alice remarked. 

“ Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat ; “we’re 
all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” 

“ How do you know I’m mad ? ” said Alice. 

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t 
have come here.” 

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all : how- 
ever, she went on, “ And how do you know that 
you’re mad ? ” 

“To begin with,” said the Cat, “ a dog’s not 
mad. You grant that ? ” 

“ I suppose so,” said Alice. 

“ Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog 
growls when it’s angrj^, and wags its tail when 
it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, 
and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore 
I’m mad.” 

“ J call it purring, not growling,” said Alice. 

“ Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “ Do 
you play croquet with the Queen to-day?” 

“ I should like it very much,” said Alice, “ but 
I haven’t been invited yet.” 


PIG AND PEPPER 


83 


“ You’ll s.ee me there,” said the Cat, and van- 
ished. 

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was 
getting so well used to queer things happening. 
While she was still looking at the place where it 
had been, it suddenly appeared again. 

“ By the bye, what became of the baby ? ” said 
the Cat. “ I’d nearly forgotten to ask.” ‘ 

“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very 
quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a 
natural way. 

“ I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished 
again. 

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it 
again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or 
two she walked on in the direction in which the 
March Hare was said to live. “ I’ve seen hatters 
before,” she said to herself ; “ the March Hare 
will be much the most interesting, and perhaps, as 
this is May, it won’t be raving mad — at least not 
so mad as it was in March.” As she said this, she 
looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on 
a branch of a tree. 


84 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ Did you say ‘ pig*’ or ‘ fig ’ ? ” said the Cat. 

“ I said ‘ pig ” replied Alice ; “ and I wish you 
wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so sud- 
denly : you make one quite giddy I ” 

“ All right,” said the Cat ; and this time it van- 
ished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the 



tail, and ending with the grin, which remained 
some time after the rest of it had gone. 

“Well ! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” 
thought Alice ; “ but a grin without a cat ! It’s 
the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life I ” 


PIG AND PEPPER 


85 


She had not gone much farther before she came 
in sight of the house of the March Hare : she 
thought it must be the right house, because the 
chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was 
thatched with fur. It was so large a house that 
she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled 
some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom, and 
raised herself to about two feet high : even then 
she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying 
to herself : “ Suppose it should be raving mad 
after all ! I almost wish I’d gone to see the 
Hatter instead ! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 

There was a table set out under a tree in front 
of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter 
were having tea at it: a Dormouse^ was sitting 
between them, fast asleep, and the other two were 
using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, 
and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable 
for the Dormouse,” thought Alice ; “ only as it’s 
asleep I suppose it doesn’t mind.” 

The table was a large one, but the three were 
all crowded together at one corner of it. “No 
room ! No room ! ” they cried out when they 
saw Alice coming. “ There’s plenty of room ! ” 
said Alice, indignantly, and she sat down in a 
large arm-chair at one end of the table. 

1 “ To sleep like a Dormouse ” is a familiar English proverb. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


87 


“ Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an 
encouraging tone. 

Alice looked all round the table, but there was 



nothing on it but tea. “ I don’t see any wine,” 
she remarked. 

“ There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. 

“ Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” 
said Alice, angrily. 

“ It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without 
being invited,” said the March Hare. 



88 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice ; 
“ it’s laid for a great many more than three.” 

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. 
He had been looking at Alice for some time with 
great curiosity, and this was his first speech. 

“ You should learn not to make personal re- 
marks,” Alice said with some severity ; “ it’s very 
rude.” 

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hear- 
ing this ; but all he said was, “ Why is a raven 
like a writing-desk ? ” 

“ Come, we shall have some fun now ! ” thought 
Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles 
— I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. 

“ Do you mean that you think you can find out 
the answer to it ? ” said the March Hare. 

“ Exactly so,” said Alice. 

“ Then you should say what you mean,” the 
March Hare went on. 

“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least — at 
least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, 
you know.” 

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


89 


“Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see 
what I eat ’ is the same thing as ‘ I eat what I 
see ’ ! ” 

“You might just as well say,” added the March 
Hare, “ that ‘ I like what I get ’ is the same thing 
as ‘ I get what I like ’ ! ” 

“ You might just as well say,” added the Dor- 
mouse, who seemed to be talking in his* sleep, 
“ that ‘ I breathe when I sleep ’ is the same thing 
as ‘ I sleep when I breathe ’ ! ” 

“ It is the same thing with you,” said the Hat- 
ter, and here the conversation dropped, and the 
party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought 
over all she could remember about ravens and 
writing-desks, which wasn’t much. 

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 
“ What day of the month is it?” he said, turning 
to Alice : he had taken his watch out of his pocket, 
and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every 
now and then, and holding it to his ear. 

Alice considered a little, and then said, “The 
fourth.” 

“ Two days wrong ! ” sighed the Hatter. “ I 


90 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

told you butter wouldn’t suit the works ! ” he 
added, looking angrily at the March Hare. 

“ It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly 
replied. 

“ Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as 
well,” the Hatter grumbled ; “ you shouldn’t have 
put it in with the bread-knife.” 

The March Hare took the watch and looked at 
it gloomily : then he dipped it into his cup of tea, 
and looked at it again ; but he could think of noth- 
ing better to say than his first remark, “It was 
the heat butter, you know.” 

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with 
some curiosity. “ What a funny watch ! ” she 
remarked. “ It tells the day of the month, and 
doesn’t tell what o’clock it is ! ” 

“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. 
“ Does your watch tell you what year it is ? ” 

“ Of course not,” Alice replied very readily ; 
“but that’s because it stays the same year for 
such a long time together.” 

“ Which is just the case with mme,” said the 
Hatter. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


91 


Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s 
remark seemed to her to have no sort of meaning 
in it, and yet it was certainly English. “ I don’t 
quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she 
could. 

“ The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hat- 
ter, and he poured a little hot tea on to its nose. 

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently 
and said, without opening its eyes, “ Of course, 
of course : just what I was going to remark 
myself.” 

“ Have you guessed the riddle yet? ” the Hatter 
said, turning to Alice again. 

“ No, I give it up,” Alice replied. “ What’s the 
answer ? ” 

“ I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. 

“Nor I,” said the March Hare. 

Alice sighed wearily. “ I think you might do 
something better with the time,” she said, “ than 
wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.” 

“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the 
Hatter, “ you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s 
him. ” 


92 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. 

“ Of course you don’t ! ” the Hatter said, toss- 
ing his head contemptuously. “ I dare say you 
never even spoke to Time ! ” 

“ Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied ; “ but 
I know 1 have to beat time when I learn music.” 

“ Ah ! That accounts for it,” said the Hatter. 
“He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only 
kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost any- 
thing you liked with the clock. For instance, 
suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just 
time to begin lessons : you’d only have to whisper 
a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a 
twinkling ! Half-past one, time for dinner I ” 

(“ I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to 
itself in a whisper.) 

“ That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice, 
thoughtfully : “ but then — I shouldn’t be hungry 
for it, you know.” 

“ Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter ; “but 
you could keep it to half -past one as long as you 
liked.” 

“ Is that the way you manage ? ” Alice asked. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


93 


The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “ Not 
I,” he replied. “We quarrelled last March — 
just before he went mad, you know — ” (point- 
ing with his teaspoon at the March Hare) “ — it 
was at the great concert given by the Queen of 
Hearts, and I had to sing : — 

‘ Twinkle, twinkle, little bat ! 

How I wonder what you’re at I * 

You know the song, perhaps ? 

“ I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. 

“ It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, 
“ in this way : — 

‘ Up above the world you fly, 

Like a tea-tray in the sky. 

Twinkle, twinkle — ’ ” 

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began 
singing in its sleep, “ Twinkle^ twinkle^ twinkle^ 
twinkle^ — ” and went on so long that they had to 
pinch it to make it stop. 

“ Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said 


94 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


the Hatter, “ when the Queen bawled out : ‘ He’s 
murdering the time ! Off with his head ! ’ ” 

“ How dreadfully savage ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

“ And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a 
mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask ! It’s 
always six o’clock now.” 

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “ Is that 
the reason so many tea-things are put out here ? ” 
she asked. 

“ Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh ; 
“ it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash 
the things between whiles.” 

“ Then you keep moving round, I suppose ? ” 
said Alice. 

“ Exactly so,” said the Hatter ; “ as the things 
get used up.” 

“ But when you come to the beginning again ? ” 
Alice ventured to ask. 

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March 
Hare interrupted, yawning. “ I’m getting tired 
of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” 

“ I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, 
rather alarmed at the proposal. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


95 


“ Then the Dormouse shall ! ” they both cried. 
“ Wake up, Dormouse ! ” And they pinched it on 
both sides at once. 

The Dormouse slowly opened its eyes. “ I 
wasn’t asleep,” it said in a hoarse, feeble voice, 
“ I heard every word you fellows were saying.” 

“ Tell us a story ! ” said the March Hare. 

“ Yes, please do I ” pleaded Alice. 

“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “ or 
you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.” 

“Once upon a time there were three little 
sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry ; 
“ and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie ; 
and they lived at the bottom of a well — ” 

“ What did they live on ? ” said Alice, who 
always took a great interest in questions of eating 
and drinking. 

“ They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, 
after thinking a minute or two. 

“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” 
Alice gently remarked : “they’d have been ill.” 

“ So they were,” said the Dormouse ; “ very 
ill.” 


96 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


Alice tried a little to fancy to herself what such 
an extraordinary way of living would be like, but 
it puzzled her too much, so she went on, “But 
why did they live at the bottom of a well ? ” 

“ Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to 
Alice, very earnestly. 

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an 
offended tone, “ so I can’t take more.” 

“ You mean, you can’t take said the 

Hatter ; “ it’s very easy to take more than 

nothing.” 

“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice. 

“ Who’s making personal remarks now ? ” the 
Hatter asked triumphantly. 

Alice did not quite know what to say to this : 
so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and- 
butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and 
repeated her question. “ Why did they live at 
the bottom of a well?” 

The Dormouse again took a minute or two 
to think about it, and then said, “It was a 
treacle-well.” 

“There’s no such thing!” Alice was begin- 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


97 


ning very angrily ; but the Hatter and the March 
Hare went “ Sh ! sh ! ” and the Dormouse sulkily 
remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better 
finish the story for yourself.” 

“No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly. 
“ I won’t interrupt you again. I dare say there 
may be 

“ One, indeed ! ” said the Dormouse, indig- 
nantly. However, he consented to go on. “ And 
so these three little sisters — they were learning 
to draw, you know — ” 

“What did they draw?” said Alice, quite 
forgetting her promise. 

“ Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without consid- 
ering at all this time. 

“ I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter ; 
“let’s all move one place on.” 

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse fol- 
lowed him : the March Hare moved into the Dor- 
mouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took 
the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was 
the only one who got any advantage from the 
change : and Alice was a good deal worse off than 


H 


98 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

before, as the March Hare had just upset the 
milk jug into his plate. 

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse 
again, so she began very cautiously : “ But I 
don’t understand. Where did they draw the 
treacle from?” 

“ You can draw water out of a water- well,” 
said the Hatter; “so I should think you could 
draw treacle out of a treacle-well — eh, stupid?” 

“ But they were in the well,” Alice said to 
the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last 
remark. 

“Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; 
“well in.” 

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she 
let the Dormouse go on for some time without 
interrupting it. 

“ They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse 
went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it 
was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all 
manner of things — everything that begins with 
an M — ” 

“ Why with an M ? ” said Alice. 


A MAD TEA-PARTY 


99 


“ Why not? ” said the March Hare. 

Alice was silent. 

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, 
and was going off into a doze ; but, on being 
pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with 
a little shriek, and went on ; “ — that begins 
with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, 
and memory, and muchness — you know you say 
things are ‘ much of a muchness ’ — did you ever 
see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?” 

“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very 
much confused, “ I don’t think — ” 

“ Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. 

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could 
bear ; she got up in great disgust and walked off : 
the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of 
the others took the least notice of her going, 
though she looked back once or twice, half hop- 
ing that they would call after her : the last time 
she saw them, they were trying to put the Dor- 
mouse into the teapot. 

“At any rate I’ll never go there again ! ” said 
Alice, as she picked her way through the wood. 


LefC. 


100 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all 
my life ! ” 

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the 
trees had a door leading right into it. “That’s 
very curious ! ” she thought. “ But everything’s 
curious to-day. I think I may as well go in 
at once.” And in she went. 

Once more she found herself in the long hall, 
and close to the little glass table. “ Now, I’ll 
manage better this time,” she said to herself, 
and began by taking the little golden key, and 
unlocking the door that led into the garden. 
Then she set to work nibbling at the mushroom 
(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she 
was about a foot high; then she walked down 
the little passage ; and then — she found herself at 
last in the beautiful garden, among the bright 
flower-beds and the cool fountains. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE queen’s croquet-ground 

A LARGE rose tree stood near the entrance of 
the garden : the roses growing on it were white, 
but there were three gardeners at it, busily paint- 
ing them red. Alice thought this a very curious 
thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and 
just as she came up to them she heard one of them 
say, “ Look out now. Five ! Don’t go splashing 
paint over me like that I ” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” said Five in a sulky tone ; 
“ Seven jogged my elbow.” 

On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s 
right. Five ! Always lay the blame on others ! ” 
“ You'd better not talk ! ” said Five. “ I heard 
the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be 
beheaded.” 


101 


102 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ What for ? ” said the one who had spoken first. 
“ That’s none of your business, Two ! ” said 
Seven. 

‘‘ Yes, it is his business ! ” said Five. “And 
I’ll tell him — it was 
for bringing the cook 
tulip roots instead of 
onions.” 

Seven flung down 
his brush, and had 
just begun “Well, of 
all the unjust things 
— ” when his eye 
chanced to fall upon 
Alice, as she stood 
watching them, and 
he checked himself 
suddenly : the others 
looked round also, 

“ Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, a little 
timidly, “ why are you painting those roses ? ” 
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at 



and all of them bowed low. 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


103 


Two. Two began, in a low voice : “ Why, the 
fact is, you see. Miss, this here ought to have been 
a red rose tree, and we put a white one in by 
mistake, and if the Queen was to find it out, we 
should all have our heads cut off, you know. So 
you see. Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she 
comes, to — ” At this moment Five, who had 
been anxiously looking across the garden, called 
out, “ The Queen ! The Queen ! ” and the three 
gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon 
their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, 
and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. 

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs ; these 
were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong 
and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners : 
next the ten courtiers ; these were ornamented all 
over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the 
soldiers did. After these came the royal children : 
there were ten of them, and the little dears came 
jumping merrily along, hand in hand, in couples ; 
they were all ornamented with hearts. Next 
came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and 
among them Alice recognized the White Rabbit ; 


104 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


it was talking in a hurried, nervous manner, smil- 
ing at everything that was said, and went by with- 
out noticing her. Then followed the Knave of 
Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson 
velvet cushion ; and last of all this grand pro- 
cession came THE KING AND THE QUEEN 
OF HEARTS. 

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought 
not to lie down on her face like the three gardeners, 
but she could not remember ever having heard of 
such a rule at processions ; “ And, besides, what 
would be the use of a procession,” thought she, 
“ if people had all to lie down on their faces, so 
that they couldn’t see it ? ” So she stood where 
she was, and waited. 

When the procession came opposite to Alice, 
they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen 
said severely, “ Who is this ? ” She said it to the 
Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in 
reply. 

“ Idiot ! ” said the Queen, tossing her head 
impatiently ; and, turning to Alice, she went on, 
“ What’s your name, child ? ” 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


105 


“ My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” 
said Alice, very politely ; but she added to herself: 
“ Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I 
needn’t be afraid of them ! ” 

“ And who are these ” said the Queen, pointing 
to the three gardeners who were lying round the 
rose tree; for you see, as they were lying on their 
faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same 
as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether 
they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or 
three of her own children. 

“ How should I know ? ” said Alice, surprised at 
her own courage. “It’s no business of mine.” 

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after 
glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, began 
screaming : “ Off with her head ! Off with — ” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Alice, very loudly and de- 
cidedly, and the Queen was silent. 

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and 
timidly said, “ Consider, my dear ; she is only a 
child! ” 

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and 
said to the Knave, “ Turn them over! ” 


106 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 
The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot 



“ Get up! ” said the Queen in a shrill, loud voice 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


107 


and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and 
began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal 
children, and everybody else. 

“ Leave off that! ” screamed the Queen. “ You 
make me giddy.” And then turning to the rose 
tree, she went on, What have you been doing 
here ? ” 

“ May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a 
very humble tone, going down on one knee as he 
spoke, “ we were trying — ” 

“Zsee!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile 
been examining the roses. “ Off with their heads!” 
and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers 
remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gar- 
deners, who ran to Alice for protection. 

“ You shan’t be beheaded I ” said Alice, and she 
put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. 
The three soldiers wandered about for a minute 
or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched 
off after the others. 

“ Are their heads off ? ” shouted the Queen. 

“ Their heads are gone, if it please your 
Majesty ! ” the soldiers shouted in reply. 


108 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ That’s right ! ” shouted the Queen. “ Can 
you play croquet ? ” 

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, 
as the question was evidently meant for her. 

“ Yes ! ” shouted Alice. 

“ Come on, then ! ” roared the Queen, and Alice 
joined the procession, wondering very much what 
would happen next. 

“ It’s — it’s a very fine day ! ” said a timid voice 
at her side. She was walking by the White Rab- 
bit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. 

“ Very,” said Alice : “ where’s the Duchess ? ” 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” said the Rabbit, in a low, 
hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his 
shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon 
tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whis- 
pered, “She’s under sentence of execution.” 

“ What for ? ” said Alice. 

“ Did you say, ‘ What a pity ! ’ ? ” the Rabbit 
asked. 

“No, I didn’t,” said Alice ; “I don’t think it’s 
at all a pity. I said, ‘ What for ? ’ ” 

“ She boxed the Queen’s ears — ” the Rabbit 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


109 


began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. 
“ Oh, hush ! ” the Rabbit whispered in a fright- 
ened tone. ‘‘ The Queen will hear you ! You 
see she came rather late, and the Queen said — ” 

“ Get to your places ! ” shouted the Queen, in 
a voice of thunder, and 
people began running 
about in all directions, 
tumbling up against 
each other ; however, 
they got settled down 
in a minute or two, and 
the game began. 

Alice thought she had 
never seen such a curious 
croquet-ground in her 
life : it was all ridges 
and furrows ; the 
croquet balls were live 
hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and 
the soldiers had to double themselves up and 
stand on their hands and feet to make the arches. 

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in 



110 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

managing her flamingo : she succeeded in getting 
its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under 
her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, 
just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, 
and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with 
its head, it would twist itself round and look up in 
her face, with such a puzzled expression that she 
could not help bursting out laughing ; and when 
she had got its head down, and was going to begin 
again, it was very provoking to find that the 
hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act 
of crawling away : besides all this, there was gen- 
erally a ridge or a furrow in the way wherever 
she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the 
doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and 
walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice 
soon came to the conclusion that it was a very 
difficult game indeed. 

The players all plaj^ed at once without waiting 
for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting 
for the hedgehogs ; and in a very short time the 
Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamp- 
ing about and shouting, “ Off with his head ! ” 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


111 


or “ Off with her head ! ” about once in a 
minute. 

Alice began to feel very uneasy ; to be sure, 
she had not as yet had any dispute with the 
Queen ; but she knew that it might happen any 
minute, “ And then,” thought she, “ what would 
become of me ? They’re dreadfully fond of be- 
heading people here : the great wonder is, that 
there’s any one left alive ! ” 

She was looking about for some way of escape, 
and wondering whether she could get away with- 
out being seen, when she noticed a curious appear- 
ance in the air ; it puzzled her very much at first, 
but after watching it a minute or two she made it 
out to be a grin, and she said to herself, “ It’s 
the Cheshire Cat : now I shall have somebody to 
talk to.” 

“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, 
as soon as there was mouth enough for it to 
speak with. 

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then 
nodded. “ It’s no use speaking to it,” she 
thought, “till its ears have come, or at least 


112 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


one of them.” In another minute the whole 
head appeared, and then Alice put down her 
flamingo, and began an account of the game, 
feeling very glad she had some one to listen 
to her. The Cat seemed to think that there 
was enough of it now in sight, and no more of 
it appeared. 

“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice 
began, in rather a complaining tone, “ and they 
all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear one’s self 
speak — and they don’t seem to have any rules in 
particular ; at least, if there are, nobody attends 
to them — and you’ve no idea how confusing it is 
all the things being alive; for instance, there’s 
the arch I’ve got to go through next walking 
about at the other end of the ground — and I 
should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just 
now, only it ran away when it saw mine com- 
ing ! ” 

“ How do you like the Queen? ” said the Cat in 
a low voice. 

“Not at all,” said Alice; “she’s so extremely 
— ” Just then she noticed that the Queen was 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 113 

close behind her, listening : so she went on 
“ — likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while 
finishing the game.” 

The Queen smiled and passed on. 

“Who are you talking to?” said the King, 
coming up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head 
with great curiosity. 

“It’s a friend of mine — a Cheshire Cat,” said 
Alice; “allow me to introduce it.” 

“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the 
King ; “ however, it may kiss my hand, if it 
likes.” 

“ I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. 

“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, “and 
don’t look at me like that ! ” He got behind 
Alice as he spoke. 

“ A cat may look at a king,” said Alice. “ I’ve 
read that in some book, but I don’t remember 
where.” 

“Well, it must be removed,” said the King, 
very decidedly; and he called to the Queen, who 
was passing at the moment : “ My dear ! I wish 
you w'ould have this cat removed ! ” 


114 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

The Queen had only one way of settling all 
difficulties, great or small. “ Off with his head ! ” 
she said without even looking round. 

“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the 
King, eagerly, and he hurried off. 

Alice thought she might as well go back and 
see how the game was going on, as she heard the 
Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with pas- 
sion. She had already heard her sentence three 
of the players to be executed for having missed 
their turns, and she did not like the look of things 
at all, as the game was in such confusion that she 
never knew whether it was her turn or not. So 
she went off in search of her hedgehog. 

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with 
another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an 
excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them 
with the other : the only difficulty was, that her 
flamingo was gone across to the other side of the 
gardeil, where Alice could see it trying in a help- 
less sort of way to fly up into a tree. 

By the time she had caught the flamingo and 
brought it back, the fight was over, and both 


THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND 


115 


the hedgehogs were out of sight ; “ but it doesn’t 
matter much,” thought Alice, “ as all the arches 
are gone from this side of the ground.” So she 
tucked it away under her arm, that it might not 
escape again, and went back to have a little more 
conversation with her friend. 

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she 
was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected 
round it: there was a dispute going on between 
the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who 
were all talking at once, while all the rest were 
quite silent and looked very uncomfortable. 

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed 
to by all three to settle the question, and they 
repeated their arguments to her, though, as they 
all spoke at once, she found it very hard to make 
out exactly what they said. 

The executioner’s argument was, that you 
couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body 
to cut it off from : that he had never had to 
do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to 
begin at Ms time of life. 

The King’s argument was, that anything that 


116 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


had a head could be beheaded, and that yon 
weren’t to talk nonsense. 



The Queen’s argument was, that if something 
wasn’t done about it in less than no time, she’d 



THE QUEEN'S CROQUET-GROUND 


117 


have everybody executed, all round. (It was this 
last remark that had made the whole party look so 
grave and anxious.) 

Alice could think of nothing else to say but 
“It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask 
her about it.” 

“ She’s in prison,” the Queen said to the 
executioner : “ fetch her here.” And the execu- 
tioner went off like an arrow. 

The Cat’s head began fading away the moment 
he was gone, and, by the time he had come back 
with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared : so 
the King and the executioner ran wildly up and 
down, looking for it, while the rest of the party 
went back to the game. 


CHAPTER IX 

THE MOCK turtle’s STORY 

“You can’t think how glad I am to see you 
again, you dear old thing ! ” said the Duchess, 
as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, 
and they walked off together. 

Alice was very glad to find her in such a 
pleasant temper, and thought to herself that 
perhaps it was only the pepper that had made 
her so savage when they met in the kitchen. 
“ When Tm a Duchess,” she said to herself (not 
in a very hopeful tone though), “ I won’t have 
any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does 
very well without. Maybe it’s always pepper 
that makes people hot-tempered,” she went on, 
very much pleased at having found out a new 
kind of rule, “ and vinegar that makes them 
118 


THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY 


119 


sour — and camomile that makes them bitter — 
and — and barley-sugar and such things that 
make children sweet-tempered. I only wish 
people knew that : then they wouldn’t be so 
stingy about it, you know — ” 

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this 
time, and was a little startled when she heard 
her voice close to her ear. “ You’re thinking 
about something, my dear, and that makes you 
forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the 
moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.” 

“ Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to 
remark. 

“ Tut, tut, child ! ” said the Duchess. “ Every- 
thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” And 
she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as 
she spoke. 

Alice did not much like her keeping so close to 
her : first, because the Duchess was very ugly ; and 
secondly, because she was exactly the right height 
to rest her chin on Alice’s shoulder, and it was an 
uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not 
like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could. 


120 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ The game’s going on rather better now,” she 
said, by way of keeping up the conversation a 
little. 

“ ’Tis so,” said the Duchess ; “ and the moral of 
that is — ‘ Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the 
world go round I ’ ” 

“ Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “ that it’s 
done by everybody minding their own business ! ” 

“ Ah, well ! It means much the same thing,” 
said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin 
into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “ and the moral 
of that is — ‘ Take care of the sense, and the sounds 
will take care of themselves.’ 

How fond she is of finding morals in things ! ” 
Alice thought to herself. 

“ I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put 
my arm round your waist,” the Duchess said, after 
a pause ; “ the reason is, that I’m doubtful about 
the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the 
experiment ? ” 

“ He might bite,” Alice cautiously replied, not 

1 Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of 
themselves. 


THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY 


121 


feeling at all anxious to have the experiment 
tried. 

“Very true,” said the Duchess; “flamingoes 
and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is 

— ‘ Birds of a feather flock together.’ ” 

“ Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked. 

“ Right, as usual,” said the Duchess ; “ what a 
clear way you have of putting things ! ” 

“ It’s a mineral, I thinks" said Alice. 

“ Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed 
ready to agree to everything that Alice said; 
“there’s a large mustard mine near here. And 
the moral of that is — ‘ The more there is of mine, 
the less there is of yours.’ ” 

“ Oh, I know ! ” exclaimed Alice, who had not 
attended to this last remark, “it’s a vegetable. 
It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess, 
“ and the moral of that is — ‘Be what you would 
seem to be ’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply 

— ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise 
than what it might appear to others that what 
you were or might have been was not otherwise 


122 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

than what you had been would have appeared to 
them to be otherwise.’ ” 

“I think I should understand that better,” 
Alice said very politely, “if I had it written 
down; but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.” 

“ That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” 
the Duchess replied in a pleased tone. 

“ Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any 
longer than that,” said Alice. 

“ Oh, don’t talk about trouble ! ” said the Duch- 
ess. “I make you a present of everything I’ve 
said as yet.” 

“ A cheap sort of present ! ” thought Alice. 
“I’m glad people don’t give birthday presents 
like that ! ” but she did not venture to say it 
out loud. 

“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with 
another dig of her sharp little chin. 

“ I’ve a right to think,” said Alice, sharply, for 
she was beginning to feel a little worried. 

“ Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, 
“ as pigs have to fly ; and the m — ” 

But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duch- 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY 


123 


ess’s voice died away, even in the middle of her 
favorite word “moral,” and the arm that was 
linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked 
up, and there stood the Queen in front of them, 
with her arms folded, frowning like a thunder- 
storm. 

“ A fine day, your Majesty ! ” the Duchess be- 
gan in a low, weak voice. 

“Now I give you fair warning,” shouted the 
Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke, 
“ either you or your head must be off, and that in 
about half no time ! Take your choice ! ” 

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a 
moment. 

“ Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen said to 
Alice, and Alice was too much frightened to say a 
word, but slowly followed her back to the croquet- 
ground. 

The other guests had taken advantage of the 
Queen’s absence, and were resting in the shade ; 
liowever, the moment they saw her, they hurried 
back to the game, the Queen merely remarking 
that a moment’s delay would cost them their lives. 


124 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

All the time they were playing the Queen never 
left off quarrelling with the other players and 
shouting, “ Off with his head ! ” or “ Off with her 
head ! ” Those whom she sentenced were taken 
into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to 
leave off being arches to do this, so that, by the 
end of half an hour or so, there were no arches 
left, and all the players, except the King, the 
Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under 
sentence of execution. 

Then the Queen left off quite out of breath, and 
said to Alice, “ Have you seen the Mock Turtle 
yet ? ” 

“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a 
Mock Turtle is.” 

“ It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,” 
said the Queen. 

“ I never saw one, or heard of one,” said Alice. 

“ Come on, then,” said the Queen, “ and he shall 
tell you his history.” 

As they walked off together, Alice heard the 
King say in a low voice to the company generally, 
“You are all pardoned.” “Come, that's a good 


THE MOCK TURTLE^S STORY 


125 


thing ! ” she said to herself, for she had felt quite 
unhappy at the number of executions the Queen 
had ordered. 

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, ^ lying 
fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know what 



a Gryphon ‘is, look at the picture.) “Up, lazy 
thing ! ” said the Queen, “ and take this young 
lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his his- 
tory. I must go back and see after some execu- 
tions I have ordered ; ” and she walked off, leaving 
1 Gryph^on. 


126 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not 
quite like the look of the creature ; but on the 
whole she thought it would be quite as safe to 
stay with it as to go after that savage Queen : so 
she waited. 

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes ; then 
it watched the Queen till she was out of sight ; 
then it chuckled. “ What fun ! ” said the Gryphon, 
half to itself, half to Alice. 

“ What is the fun ? said Alice. 

“ Why, she,'' said the Gryphon. “ It’s all her 
fancy, that ; they never executes nobody, you 
know. Come on ! ” 

“ Everybody says ‘ come on ! ’ here,” thought 
Alice, as she went slowly after it ; “I never 
was so ordered about before in all my life, 
never ! ” 

They had not gone far before they saw the 
Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and 
lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came 
nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart 
would break. She pitied him deeply. “ What is 
his sorrow ? ” she asked the Gryphon, and the 


THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY 


127 


Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words 
as before : “ It’s all his fancy, that ; he hasn’t got 
no sorrow, you know. Come on ! ” 

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked 
at them with large eyes full of tears, but said 
nothing. 

“ This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, 
“ she wants for to know your history, she do.” 

“ I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle, in a 
deep, hollow tone. “ Sit down, both of you, and 
don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” 

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some 
minutes. Alice thought to herself, “ I don’t see 
how he can ever finish if he doesn’t begin.” But 
she waited patiently. 

“ Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a 
deep sigh, “ I was a real Turtle.” 

These words were followed by a very long si- 
lence, broken only by an occasional exclamation 
of “ Hjckrrh ! ” from the Gryphon, and the constant 
heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very 
nearly getting up and saying, “ Thank you. Sir, 
for your interesting story,” but she could not help 


128 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


thinking there must be more to come, so she sat 
still and said nothing. 



“ When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went 



THE MOCK TURTLE^S STORY 


m 


on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a 
little now and then, “we went to school in the 
sea. The master was an old Turtle — we used to 
call him Tortoise — ” 

“ Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t 
one ? ” Alice asked. 

“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” 
said the Mock Turtle, angrily, “Really, you are 
very dull ! ” 

• “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for ask- 
ing such a simple question,” added the Gryphon ; 
and then they both sat silent and looked at poor 
Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At 
last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle; “ Drive 
on, old fellow ! Don’t be all day about it ! ” and 
he went on in these words : — 

“ Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you 
mayn’t believe it — ” 

“ I never said I didn’t ! ” interrupted Alice. 

“ You did ! ” said the Mock Turtle. 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” added the Gryphon, be- 
fore Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle 
went on : — 


130 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“We had the best of educations — in fact, we 
went to school every day — ” 

been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; 
“you needn’t be so proud as all that.” 

“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle, a 
little anxiously. 

“ Y es,” said Alice, “ we learned F rench and music.” 

“And washing? ” said the Mock Turtle. 

“ Certainly not ! ” said Alice, indignantly. 

“ Ah ! then yours wasn’t a really good school;” 
said the Mock Turtle, in a tone of great relief. 
“Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, 
‘French, music, and washing — extra.’” 

“You couldn’t have wanted it much,’' said 
Alice, “living at the bottom of the sea.” 

“ I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock 
Turtle, with a sigh. “ I only took the regular 
course.” 

“ What was that ? ” inquired Alice. 

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin 
with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the 
different branches of Arithmetic, — Ambition, Dis- 
traction, Uglihcation, and Derision.” 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY 


131 


“ I never heard of ‘ Uglification,’ Alice ven- 
tured to say. “What is it?” 

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in sur- 
prise. “Never heard of uglifying ! ” it exclaimed. 
“ You know what to beautify is, I suppose? ” 
“Yes,” said Alice, doubtfully; “it means — to 

— make — anything — prettier. ” 

“ Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “ if you don’t 
know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.” 

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more 
questions about it: so she turned to the Mock 
Turtle, and said, “What else had you to learn?” 

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle 
replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, 

— “Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaogra- 
phy ; then Drawling — the Drawling-master was 
an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week : 
he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting 
in Coils.” 

“ What was that like? ” said Alice. 

“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the Mock 
Turtle said ; “ I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon 
never learnt it.” 


132 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon ; “ I went to 
the Classical master, though. He was an old 
crab, he was.” 

“ I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said 
with a sigh : “ he taught Laughing and Grief, 
they used to say.” 

“ So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sigh- 
ing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces 
in their paws. 

“ And how many hours a day did you do 
lessons ? ” said Alice, in a hurry to change the 
subject. 

“ Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock 
Turtle; “nine the next, and so on.” 

“ What a curious plan ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

“ That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the 
Gryphon remarked; “because they lessen from 
day to day.” 

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she 
thought it over a little before she made her next 
remark. “ Then the eleventh day must have 
been a holiday?” 

“ Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. 


THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY 


133 


“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” 
Alice went on eagerly. 

“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon 
interrupted in a very decided tone. “ Tell her 
something about the games now.” 


CHAPTER X 

% 

THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the 
back of one flapper across his eyes. He looked 
at Alice and tried to speak ; but, for a minute or 
two, sobs choked his voice. “ Same as if he had 
a bone in his throat,” said the Gryphon ; and it 
set to work shaking him and punching him in the 
back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his 
voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, 
he went on again : — 

“You may not have lived much under the 
sea — ” (“I haven’t,” said Alice) “ — and perhaps 
you were never even introduced to a lobster — ” 
(Alice began to say, “ I once tasted — ” but 
checked herself hastily, and said, “No, never”) 
134 


THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 


135 


“ — SO you can have no idea what a delightful 
thing a Lobster-Quadrille is ! ” 

“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a 
dance is it?” 

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form into 
a line along the seashore — ” 

“ Two lines ! ” cried the Mock Turtle. “ Seals, 
turtles, salmon, and so on ; then, when yofi’ve 
cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way — ” 

“ That generally takes some time,” interrupted 
the Gryphon. 

“ — you advance twice — ” 

“ Each with a lobster as a partner ! ” cried the 
Gryphon. 

“ Of course,” the Mock Turtle said ; “ advance 
twice, set to partners — ” 

u — change lobsters, and retire in same order,” 
continued the Gryphon. 

“ Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went on, 
“ you throw the — ” 

“ The lobsters I ” shouted the Gryphon, with a 
bound into the air. 

“ — as far out to sea as you can — ” 


136 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ Swim after them ! ” screamed the Gryphon. 

“ Turn a somersault in the sea ! ” cried the 
Mock Turtle, capering wildly about. 

“ Change lobsters again ! ” yelled the Gryphon 
at the top of its voice. 

“ Back to land again, and — that’s all the first 
figure,” said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping 
his voice ; and the two creatures, who had been 
jumping about like mad things all this time, sat 
down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at 
Alice. 

“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice, 
timidly. 

“Would you like to see a little of it? ” said the 
Mock Turtle. 

“Very much indeed,” said Alice. 

“ Come, let’s try the first figure ! ” said the 
Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. “We can do it 
without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing ? ” 

“ Oh, you sing,” said the Gryphon. “ I’ve for- 
gotten the words.” 

So they began solemnly dancing round and 
round Alice, every now and then treading on her 


THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 


137 


toes when they passed too close, and waving their 
fore-paws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle 
sang this, very slowly and sadly : — 


“ ‘ Will you walk a little faster? ’ said a whiting to a snail, 

‘ There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on 
my tail. 

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance ! 

They are waiting on the shingle — will you come and join 
the dance? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join 
the dance ? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join 
the dance ? 

“ ‘ You can really have no notion how delightful it will be 

When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out 
to sea ! ’ 

But the snail replied, ‘ Too far, too far ! ’ and gave a look 
askance — 

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join 
the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not 
join the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not 
join the dance. 


138 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend re- 
plied, 

‘ There is another shore, yon know, upon the other side. 

The further off from England the nearer is to France ; 

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the 
dance. 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join 
the dance ? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join 
the dance ? ’ ” 

■ “ Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to 
watch,” said Alice, feeling very glad that it was 
over at last ; “ and I do so like that curious song 
about the whiting! ” 

“ Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, 
“ they — you’ve seen them, of course ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Alice, “ I’ve often seen them at 
dinn — ” she checked herself hastily. 

“ I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the 
Mock Turtle; “but if you’ve seen them so often, of 
course you know what they’re like.” 

“ I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. 
“ They have their tails in their mouths — and 
they’re all over crumbs.” 


THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 


139 


“ You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the 
Mock Turtle; “crumbs would all wash off in 
the sea. But they have their tails in their 
mouths; and the reason is — ” here the Mock 
Turtle yawned and shut his eyes. “Tell her 
about the reason and all that,” he said to the 
Gryphon. 

“ The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “ that they 
would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they 
got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long 
way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. 
So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.” 

“ Thank you,” said Alice ; “ it’s, very interesting. 
I never knew so much about a whiting before.” 

“ I can tell you more than that, if you like,” 
said the Gryphon. “ Do you know why it’s 
called a whiting ? ” 

“ I never thought about it,” said Alice. 
“Why?” 

does the hoots and shoes^'"’ the Gryphon 
replied very solemnly. 

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “ Does the boots 
and shoes ! ” she repeated in a wondering tone. 


140 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“Why, what are your shoes done with?” said 
the Gryphon. “I mean, what makes them so 
shiny ? ” 

Alice looked down at them, and considered a 
little before she gave her answer. “ They’re 
done with blacking, I believe.” 

“ Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon 
went on in a deep voice, “ are done with whiting. 
Now you know.” 

“ And what are they made of ? ” Alice asked in 
a tone of great curiosity. 

“ Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied 
rather impatiently ; “ any shrimp could have told 
you that.” 

“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose 
thoughts were still running on the song, “ I’d 
have said to the porpoise, ‘ Keep back, please ; 
we don’t want you with us ! ’ ” 

“ They were obliged to have him with them,” 
the Mock Turtle said. “Nowise fish would go 
anywhere without a porpoise.” 

“Wouldn’t it, really?” said Alice, in a tone of 
great surprise. 


THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 


141 


“ Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle. “ Why, 
if a fish came to we, and told me he was goii:g a 
journey, I should say, ‘ With what porpoise ? ’ ” 

“ Don’t you mean ‘ purpose ’ ? ” said Alice. 

“ I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied, 
in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added, 
“Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.” 

“ I could tell you my adventures — beginning 
from this morning,” said Alice, a little timidly; 
“but it’s no use going back to yesterday, be- 
cause I was a different person then.” 

“ Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“No, no! The adventures first,” saia the 
Gryphon in an impatient tone ; “ explanations 
take such a dreadful time.” 

So Alice began telling them her adventures 
from the time when she first saw^ the White 
Rabbit ; she was a little nervous about it just at 
first, the two creatures got so close to her, one 
on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths 
so very wide, but she gained courage as she 
went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet 
till she got to the part about her repeating 


142 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ You are old, Father William,” to the Caterpillar, 
and the words all coming different, and then 
the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said. 



the sluggard,’ ” said the 
“ How the creatures c 


“ That’s very curious.” 

“ It’s all about as 
curious as it can be,” 
said the Gryphon. 

“ It all came dif- 
ferent ! ” the Mock 
Turtle repeated 
thoughtfully. “I 
should like to hear 
her try and repeat 
something now. Tell 
her to begin.” He 
looked at the Gryphon 
as if he thought it 
had some kind of au- 
thority over Alice. 

“ Stand up and re- 
peat ‘ ’Tis the voice of 
yphon. 

jr one about and make 


THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE 


143 


one repeat lessons ! ” thought Alice. “ I might 
just as well be at school at once.” However, she 
got up and began to repeat it, but her head was 
so full of the Lobster- Quadrille that she hardly 
knew what she was saying ; and the words came 
very queer indeed : — 

“ ’Tis the voice of the Lobster : I heard him declare 
‘ You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ 
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose 
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. 
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, 

And \\dll talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark : 

But, when the tide rises and sharks are around. 

His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.” 

“ That’s different from what I used to say when 
I was a child,” said the Gryphon. 

“ Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock 
Turtle ; “ but it sounds uncommon nonsense.” 

Alice said nothing ; she had sat down again 
with her face in her hands, wondering if anything 
would ever happen in a natural way again. 

“ I should like to have it explained,” said the 
Mock Turtle. 


144 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon, 
hastily. “Go on with the next verse.” 

“ But ' about his toes ? ” the Mock Turtle per- 
sisted. “ How could he turn them out with his 
nose, you know ? ” 

“ It’s the first position in dancing,” Alice said ; 
but she was dreadfully puzzled by the whole 
thing, and longed to change the subject. 

“ Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon 
repeated impatiently ; “ it begins, ‘ I passed hy his 
garden."' ” 

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt 
sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in 
a trembling voice : — 

“ I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye. 

How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie : 

The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat. 

While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. 

When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, 

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon : 

While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl. 

And concluded the banquet by — ” 

“ What is the use of repeating all that stuff ? ” 
the Mock Turtle interrupted, “ if you don’t explain 


THE LOBSTER-QUABRILLE 145 

\ 

it as you go on ? It’s by far the most confusing 
thing I ever heard ! ” 

“ Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the 
Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to do so. 

“ Shall we try another figure of the Lobster- 
Quadrille ? ” the Gryphon went on. “ Or would 
you like the Mock Turtle to sing you another 
song ? ” 

“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would 
be so kind,” Alice replied, so eagerly that the 
Gryphon said in a rather offended tone : “ Hm ! 
No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘Turtle 
Soup,’ will you, old fellow ? ” 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began in a 
voice choked with sobs to sing this : — 

“ Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, 

Waiting in a hot tureen ! 

Who for such dainties would not stoop ? 

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup 1 
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup 1 
Beau — ootiful Soo — oopl 
Beau — ootiful Soo — oop 1 
goo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful Soup 1 


146 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ Beautiful Soup ! Who cares for fish, 

Game, or any other dish ? 

Who would not give all else for two p 
ennyworth only of beautiful Soup ? 

Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Beau— ootiful Soo — oop ! 

Soo — oop of the e — e — evening. 

Beautiful, beauti — FUL SOUP ! ” 

“ Chorus again ! ” cried the Gryphon, and the 
Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a 
cry of “ The trial’s beginning ! ” was heard in the 
distance. 

“ Come on ! ” cried the Gryphon, and, taking 
Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting 
for the end of the song. 

“ What trial is it ? ” Alice panted as she ran ; 
but the Gryphon only answered, “ Come on ! ” and 
ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, 
carried on the breeze that followed them, the 
melancholy words : — 

“ Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

, Beautiful, beautiful Soup ! ” 


CHAPTER XI . 

WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on 
their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd 
assembled about them — all sorts of little birds 
and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards : 
the Knave was standing before them, in chains, 
with a soldier on each side to guard him ; and 
near the King was the White Rabbit, with a 
trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in 
the other. In the very middle of the court was 
a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it ; they 
looked so good that it made Alice quite hungry to 
look at them. “ I wish they’d get the trial done,” 
she thought, “ and hand round the refreshments ! ” 
But there seemed to be no chance of this ; so she 
began looking at everything about her to pass 
away the time. 


147 


148 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

Alice had never been in a court of justice be- 
fore, but she had read about them in books, and 
she was quite pleased to find that she knew the 
name of nearly everything there. “ That’s the 
judge,” she said to herself, “ because of his great 
wig.” 

The judge, by the way, was the King ; and as he 
wore his crown over the wig, he did not look at 
all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. 

“ And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice ; 
“ and those twelve creatures ” (she was obliged to 
say “ creatures,” you see, because some of them were 
animals, and some were birds), “ I suppose they are 
the jurors.” She said this last word two or three 
times over to herself, being rather proud of it ; 
for she thought, and rightly too, that very few 
little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at 
all. However, ‘‘jurymen” would have done just 
as well. 

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily 
on slates. “ What are they doing ? ” Alice whis- 
pered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have any- 
thing to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.” 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


149 


“ They’re putting down their names,” the 
Gryphon whispered in reply, “ for fear they should 
forget them before the end of the trial.” 

“Stupid things ! ” Alice began in a loud, indig- 
nant voice, but she stopped herself hastily, for the 
White Rabbit cried out, “ Silence in the court ! ” 
and the King put on his spectacles and looked 
anxiously round, to make out who was talking. 

Alice could see, as well as if she were looking 
over their shoulders, that all the jurors were 
writing down “ Stupid things ! ” on their slates, 
and she could even make out that one of them 
didn’t know how to spell “stupid,” and that he 
had to ask his neighbor to tell him. “A nice 
muddle their slates’ll be in, before the trial’s 
over ! ” thought Alice. 

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. 
This, of course, Alice could not stand, and she 
went round the court and got behind him, and 
very soon found an opportunity of taking it 
away. She did it so quickly that the poor 
little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not 
make out at all what had become of it ; so. 


150 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to 
write with one finger for the rest of the day ; 
and this was very little use, as it left no mark 
on the slate. 

“ Herald, read the accusation ! ” said the King. 
On this the White Rabbit blew three blast's on 
the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment 
scroll, and read as follows : — 




WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


151 


“ The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, 

All on a summer day : 

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, 

And took them quite away ! ” 

“ Consider your verdict,” the King said to the 
jury. 

“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily inter- 
rupted. “There’s a great deal to come before 
that I ” 

“ Call the first witness,” said the King ; and the 
White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, 
and called out “ First witness I ” 

The first witness was the Hatter. He came in 
with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread- 
and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your 
Majesty,” he began, “ for bringing these in ; but I 
hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.” 

“ You ought to have finished,” said the King. 
“ When did you begin? ” 

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had 
followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the 
Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I think it 
was,” he said. 


152 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. 

“ Sixteenth,” said the Dormouse. 

“Write that down,” the King said to the jury; 
and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates 
on their slates, and then added them up, and 
reduced the answer to shillings and pence. 

“Take off your hat,” the King said to the 
Hatter. 

“ It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter. 

Stolen the King exclaimed, turning to the 
jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the 
fact. 

“ I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as 
an explanation ; “ I’ve none of my own. I’m a 
hatter.” 

Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and 
began staring hard at the Hatter, who turned 
pale and fidgeted. 

“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and 
don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on 
the spot.” 

This did not seem to encourage the witness 
at all : he kept shifting from one foot to the 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS 9 


153 


other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in 
his confusion he bit a large piece out of his 
teacup instead of the bread-and-butter. 

Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious 
sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she 
made out what it was : she was beginning to grow 
larger again, and she thought at first she would 
get up and leave the court ; but on second 
thoughts she decided to remain where she was as 
long as there was room for her. 

“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the 
Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “ I can 
hardly breathe.” 

“ I can’t help it,” said Alice, very meekly ; “ I’m 
growing.” 

“ You’ve no right to grow here^"* said the Dor- 
mouse. 

“ Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice, more boldly ; 
“ you know you’re growing too.” 

“ Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,” said the 
Dormouse : “ not in that ridiculous fashion.” And 
he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the 
other side of the court. 


154 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

All this time the Queen had never left off star- 
ing at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse 
crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of 

the court, “ Bring me 
the list of the singers 
in the last concert ! ” 
on which the wretched 
Hatter trembled so 
that he shook both his 
shoes off. 

“Give your evi- 
dence,” the King re- 
peated angrily, “ or 
I’ll have you executed, 
whether you’re ner- 
vous or not.” 

“ I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter 
began in a trembling voice, “ and I hadn’t but just 
begun my tea — not above a week or so — and 
what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin — • 
and the twinkling of the tea — ” 

“The twinkling of what?” said the King. 

“ It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied. 



WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


155 


“ Of course twinkling begins with a T,” said 
the King, sharply. ‘‘ Do you take me for a dunce ? 
Go on ! ” 

“ I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “ and 
most things twinkled after that — only the March 
Hare said — ” 

“ I didn’t ! ” the March Hare interrupted in a 
great hurr3'^ 

“ You did ! ” said the Hatter. 

“ I deny it ! ” said the March Hare. 

“ He denies it,” said the King ; “ leave out that 
part.” 

“ Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said — ” the 
Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if 
he would deny it too ; but the Dormouse denied 
nothing, being fast asleep. 

“ After that,” continued the Hatter, “ I cut 
some more bread-and-butter — ” 

‘‘ But what did the Dormouse say ? ” one of the 
jury asked. 

“ That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. 

“ You must remember,” remarked the King, 
“ or I’ll have you executed.” 


156 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and 
bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. 
“ I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. 

“ You’re a very poor speaker said the King. 

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was 
immediately suppressed by the officers of the 
court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will 
just explain to you how it was done. They had 
a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth 
with strings : into this they slipped the guinea- 
pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) 

“ I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. 
“ I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end 
of trials, ‘ There was some attempt at applause, 
which was immediately suppressed by the officers 
of the court,’ and I never understood what it 
meant till now.” 

“ If that’s all you know about it, you may 
stand down,” continued the King. 

“ I can’t go no' lower,” said the Hatter ; “ I’m 
on the floor, as it is.” 

“ Then you may sit down,” the King replied. 

Here the other guinea-pig cheered and was 
suppressed. 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS f 


157 


“ Come, that finishes the guinea-pigs ! ” thought 
Alice. “Now we shall get on better.” 

“ I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with 
an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading 
the list of singers. 

“ You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter 



hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to 
put his shoes on. 

— and just take his head off outside,” the 
Queen added to one of the officers ; but the Hat- 
ter was out of sight before the officer could get to 
the door. 


158 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


“ Call the next witness ! ” said the King. 

The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She 
carried the pepper-box in her hand ; and Alice 
guessed who it was, even before she got into the 
court, by the way the people near the door began 
sneezing all at once. 

“ Give your evidence,” said the King. 

“ Shan’t,^’ said the cook. 

The King looked anxiously at the White Rab- 
bit, who said in a low voice, “ Your Majesty must 
cross-examine this witness.” 

“ Well, if I must, I must,” the King said with a 
melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and 
frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out 
of sight, he said in a deep voice, “ What are tarts 
made of ? ” 

“ Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. 

“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. 

“ Collar that Dormouse I ” the Queen shrieked 
out. “Behead that Dormouse ! Turn that Dor- 
mouse out of court ! Suppress him ! Pinch him ! 
Off with his whiskers ! ” 

For some minutes the whole court was in con- 


WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 


159 


fusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by 
the time they had settled down again, the cook 
had disappeared. 

“Never mind !” said the King, with an air of 
great relief. “Call the next witness.” And he 
added in an undertone to the Queen, “ Really, my 
dear, you must cross-examine the next witness. It 
quite makes my forehead ache ! ” 

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled 
over the list, feeling very curious to see what the 
next witness would be like, “ — for they haven’t 
got much evidence she said to herself. Im- 
agine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read 
out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name 
“Alice!” 


CHAPTER XII 
Alice’s evidence 

Here ! ” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the 
flurry of the moment how large she had grown in 
the last few.minutes, and she jumped up in such a 
hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the 
edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to 
the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay 
sprawling about, reminding her very much of a 
globe of gold-flsh she had accidentally upset the 
week before. 

“ Oh, I heg your pardon ! ” she exclaimed in a 
tone of great dismay, and began picking them up 
again as quickly as she could, for the accident of 
thd* gold-fish kept running in her head, and she had 
a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at 
once and put back into the jury-box or they would 
die. 


160 


ALICE'S EVIDENCE 


161 



very grave voice, “ until all the jurymen are back 
in their proper places — aZZ,” he repeated, with 


M 


162 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said 
so. 

Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in 
her haste, she had put the Lizard in head down- 
wards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail 
about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to 
move. She soon got it out again, and put it 
right; ‘‘Not that it signifies much,” she said to 
herself ; “ I should think it would be quite as 
much use in the trial one way up as the other.” 

As soon as the jury had a little recovered from 
the shock of being upset, and their slates and 
pencils had been found and handed back to them, 
they set to work very diligently to write out a 
history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who 
seemed too much overcome to do anything but sit 
with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of 
the court. 

“ What do you know about this business ? ” the 
King said to Alice. 

“Nothing,” said Alice. 

“Nothing whatever?^'’ persisted the King. 

“ Nothing whatever,” said Alice. 


ALICE’S EVIDENCE 


163 


“ That’s very important,” the King said, turn- 
ing to the jury. They were just beginning to 
write this down on their slates, when the White 
Rabbit interrupted, “ Cmimportant, your Majesty 
means, of course,” he said, in a very respectful 
tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he 
spoke. 

“ C/Tiimportant, of course, I meant,” the King 
hastily said, and went on to himself in an under- 
tone, “ important — unimportant — unimportant — 
important — ” as if he were trying which word 
sounded best. 

Some of the jury wrote it down “ important, ” 
and some “ unimportant.” Alice could see this, as 
she was near enough to look over their slates ; 
“ But it doesn’t matter a bit,” she thought to her- 
self. 

At this moment the King, who had been for 
some time busily writing in his note-book, called 
out “ Silence ! ” and read out from his book: “ Rule 
Forty-two. All persona more than a mile high to 
leave the court,'*'' 

Everybody looked at Alice. 


164 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

“ Tm not a mile high,” said Alice. 

“ You are,” said the King. 

“ Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. 

“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice; 
“ besides, that’s not a regular rule : you invented 
it just now.” 

“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the 
King. 

“ Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice. 

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book 
hastily. “ Consider your verdict,” he said to the 
jury, in a low, trembling voice. 

“ There’s more evidence to come yet, please 
your Majesty,” said the White Rabbit, jumping 
up in a great hurry ; “ this paper has just been 
picked up.” 

“ What’s in it ? ” said the Queen. 

“ I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White Rab- 
bit ; “ but it seems to be a letter, written by the 
prisoner to — to somebody.” 

“It must have been that,” said the King, “un- 
less it was written to nobody, which isn’t usual, 
you know.” 


ALICE'S EVIDENCE 


165 


“ Who is it directed to ? ” said one of the jury- 
men. 

“ It isn’t directed at all,” said the White Rab- 
bit ; “ in fact, there’s nothing written on the out- 
side.'' He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and 
added, “ It isn’t a letter, . after all ; it’s a set of 
verses.” 

“ Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting ? ” 
asked another of the jurymen. 

“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, “and 
that’s the queerest thing about it.” (The jury 
all looked puzzled.) 

“ He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,” 
said the King. (The jury all brightened up 
again.) 

“ Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “ I 
didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did : there’s 
no name signed at the end.” 

“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that 
only makes the matter worse. You must have 
meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed 
your name like an honest man.” 

There was a general clapping of hands at this ; 


166 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

it was the first really clever thing the King had 
said that day. 

“ That proves his guilt,” said the Queen. 

“ It proves nothing of the sort ! ” said Alice. 
“ Wh}^, you don’t even know what they’re 
about ! ” 

“ Read them,” said the King. 

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 
“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” 
he asked. 

“ Begin at the " beginning,” the King said 
gravely, “ and go on till you come to the end ; 
then stop.” 

There was dead silence in the court, whilst the 
White Rabbit read out these verses : — 

“ They told me you had been to her, 

And mentioned me to him : 

She gave me a good character, 

But said I could not swim. 

“ He sent them word I had not gone 
(We know it to be true) : 

If she should push the matter on, 

What would become of you? 


ALICEAS EVIDENCE 


167 


“ I gave her one, they gave him two, 

You gave us three or more ; 

They all returned from him to you. 

Though they were mine before. 

“ If I or she should chance to be 
Involved in this affair. 

He trusts to you to set them free. 

Exactly as we were. 

“ My motion was that you had been . 

(Before she had this fit) 

An obstacle that came between 
Him, and ourselves, and it. 

“ Don’t let him know she liked them best, 

For this must ever be 
A secret, kept from all the rest. 

Between yourself and me.” 

“That’s the most important piece of evidence 
we’ve heard yet,” said the King, rubbing his 
hands; “so now let the jury — ” 

“ If any one of them can explain it,” said Alice 
(she had grown so large in the last few minutes 


168 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 


that she wasn’t a bit afraid of interrupting him), 
ril give him sixpence. I don’t believe there’s 
an atom of meaning in it.” 

The jury all wrote down on their slates, “ She 
doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it,” 
but none of them attempted to explain the paper. 

“ If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, 
“ that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we 
needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know,” 
he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, 
and looking at them with one eye ; “ I seem to see 
some meaning in them, after all ‘ — said 1 could 
not swim — ’ you can’t swim, can you ? ” he added, 
turning to the Knave. 

The Knave shook his head sadly. ‘‘ Do I look 
like it ? ” he said. (Which he certainly did not^ 
oeing made entirely of cardboard.) 

“ All right, so far,” said the King, and he went 
3n muttering over the verses to himself ; “ ‘ ITe 
knoiv it to he true' — that’s the jury, of course — 
^If she should push the matter on' — that must be 
the Queen — ‘ What would become of you ? ' — • 
What, indeed ! — ‘7 gave her one^ they gave him 


ALICE'S EVIDENCE 


169 



two ’ — why, that 
must be what he 
did with the tarts, 
you know — ” 

“ But it goes on, 
‘ They all returned 
from him to you^" 
said Alice. 

“Why, there 
they are ! ” said 
the King, trium- 
phantly, pointing 
to the tarts on 


the table. “Nothing can be clearer than that. 
Then again — ‘ Before she had this fit — ’ you 


170 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

never had fits, my dear, I think ? ” he said to 
the Queen. 

“ Never ! ” said the Queen, furiously, throwing 
an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The 
unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his 
slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark ; 
but he now hastily began, using the ink that was 
trickling down his face as long as it lasted.) 

“ Then the words don’t fit you,” said the King, 
looking round the court with a smile. There was 
a dead silence. 

“ It’s a pun ! ” the King added in an angry tone, 
and everybody laughed. “ Let the jury consider 
their verdict,” the King said for about the twen- 
tieth time that day. 

“ No, no ! ” said the Queen. “ Sentence first — 
verdict afterwards.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense !” said Alice, loudly. “ The 
idea of having the sentence first ! ” 

“ Hold your tongue ! ” said the Queen, turning 
purple. 

“I won’t ! ” said Alice. 

“ Off with her head ! ” the Queen shouted at the 
top of her voice. Nobody moved. 


ALICEAS EVIDENCE 


171 



“ Who cares for youf ” said Alice (she had grown 
to her full size by this time). “ You’re nothing 
but a pack of cards I ” 


172 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and 
came flying down upon her; she gave a little 
scream, half of fright and half anger, and tried to 
beat them off, and found herself lying on the 
bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who 
was gently brushing away some dead leaves that 
had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. 

“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister. 
“ Why, what a long sleep you’ve had I ” 

“ Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream ! ” said 
Alice. And she told her sister, as well as she 
could remember them, all these strange Adven- 
tures of hers that you have just been reading 
about ; and when she had finished, her sister 
kissed her and said, “ It was a curious dream, 
dear, certainly ; but now run in to your tea : it’s 
getting late.” So Alice got up and ran off, think- 
ing while she ran, as well she might, what a won- 
derful dream it had been. 


But her sister sat still just as she left her, 
leaning her head on her hand, watching the 


ALICEAS EVIDENCE 


173 


setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all 
her wonderful Adventures, till she too began 
dreaming after a fashion, and this was her 
dream : — 

First, she dreamed of little Alice herself : 
once again the tiny hands were clasped upon 
her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking 
up into hers — she could hear the very tones of 
her voice, and see that queer little toss of her 
head, to keep back the wandering hair that would 
always get into her eyes — and still as she listened, 
or seemed to listen, the whole place around her 
became alive with the strange creatures of her 
little sister’s dream. 

The long grass rustled at her feet as the White 
Rabbit hurried by — the frightened Mouse splashed 
his way through the neighboring pool — she could 
hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare 
and his friends shared their never ending meal, 
and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her 
unfortunate guests to execution — - once more the 
pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while 
plates and dishes crashed around it — once more 


174 ALICEAS ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND 

the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the 
Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the sup- 
pressed guinea-pigs filled the air, mixed up with 
the distant sob of the miserable Mock Turtle. 

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half be- 
lieved herself in Wonderland, though she knew 
she had but to open them again, and all would 
change to dull reality, — the grass would be only 
rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the 
waving of the reeds — the rattling teacups would 
change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s 
shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy — ' 
and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the 
Gryphon, and all the other queer noises would 
change (she knew) to the confused clamor of 
the busy farm -yard — while the lowing of the 
cattle in the distance would take the place of 
the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs. 

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same 
little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be 
herself a grown woman ; and how she would 
keep, through all her riper years, the simple 
and loving heart of her childhood : and how she 


ALICE’S EVIDENCE 


175 


would gather about her other little children, and 
make their eyes bright and eager with many a 
strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of 
Wonderland of long-ago: and how she would 
feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a 
pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering 
her own child life and the happy summer days. 






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ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN 
WONDERLAND 


iiiflaniullan’s pocket American antJ ISngh'sf) Classics. 

A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and 
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derland (Illustrated). 

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Lowell’s The Vision of Sir Launfal. 


Macaulay’s Essay on Addison. 
Macaulay’s Essay on Hastings. 
Macaulay’s Essay on Lord Clive. 
Macaulay’s Essay on Milton. 
Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome. 
Macaulay’s Life of Samuel Johnson. 
Macaulay’s Poems. 

Milton’s Comus and Other Poems. 
Milton’s Paradise Lost, Bks. 1 and II. 
Old English Ballads. 

Out of the Northland. 

Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. 
Plutarch’s Lives (Caesar, Brutus, and 
Mark Antony). 

Poe’s Poems. 

Poe’s Prose Tales (Selections from). 
Pope’s Homer’s Iliad. 

Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies. 

Scott’s Ivanhoe. 

Scott’s Lady of the Lake. 

Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
Scott’s Marmion. 

Scott’s Quentin Durward. 

Scott’s The Talisman. 

Shakespeare’s As You Like It. 
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. 
Shakespeare’s Macbeth. 
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. 
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. 
Shelley and Keats : Poems. 

Southern Poets: Selections. 

Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Book I. 
Stevenson’s Treasure Island. 

Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. 

Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. 
Tennyson’s The Princess. 
Tennyson’s Shorter Poems. 
Woolman’s Journal. 

Wordsworth’s Shorter Poems. 


OTHERS TO FOLLOW. 


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